.    -,  -p,~. 


:o.  H.  Itoyntm. 


[HE  LIBRARY 


THE  UNIVERSITY 


OF  CALIFORNIA 


LOS  ANGELES 


IN  MEMORY  OF 
EDWIN  CORLE 

PRESENTED  BY 
JEAN  CORLE 


A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 


A  NEW 

ENGLAND ' 

BOYHOOD 


BY 

EDWARD  E.  HALE 

AUTHOR  OP  "EAST  AND  WEST,"  "SYBIL  KNOX,"  "HOW 
THEY  LIVED  AT  HAMPTON,"  ETC.,  ETC. 


NEW  YORK 

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COPYRIGHT,  1893,  BY 
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College 
Library 

PS 


INTRODUCTION. 


A  CHARMING  writer,  Miss  Lucy  Larcom,  pub 
lished  a  few  years  ago  a  charming  book  called 
"A  New  England  Girlhood."  She  described 
in  it  her  own  early  life,  first  in  Beverly, 
opposite  Salem  on  the  seashore  of  Massachu 
setts,  with  its  gardens  and  beaches  and  fishing 
boats  ;  then  in  Lowell  in  its  infant  days,  with 
its  river  and  waterfalls  and  Arcadian  cotton 
factories. 

Mr.  Horace  Scudder,  editor  of  the  Atlantic 
Monthly,  was  as  much  attracted  by  this  pleas 
ant  book  as  the  rest  of  us.  It  suggested  to 
him  the  possibility  of  another  book,  which 
should  deal  with  the  same  years,  now  becoming 
mythical,  as  a  New  England  boy  saw  life  in  the 
little  New  England  city  of  those  days — the 
only  city  of  New  England  which  took  that 
name  before  1826,  excepting  the  city  of  Ver- 

iii 


1164045 


iv  INTRODUCTION. 

gennes  in  Vermont  and  that  of  Hartford  in 
Connecticut. 

Quite  leaving  Hartford  out,  in  my  earliest 
days  it  was  always  a  joke  at  home,  if  anyone 
spoke  of  Boston  as  the  only  city,  for  some  one 
to  say,  "Boston  and  Yergennes."  Vergennes 
was  incorporated  in  1788,  by  the  legislature 
of  Vermont,  which  was  then  an  independent 
nation,  not  belonging  either  to  the  Confed 
eracy  of  the  United  States  or  sharing  in  the 
deliberations  for  the  new  constitution. 

Mr.  Scudder  asked  me  to  furnish  some 
chapters,  with  the  attractive  title  of  "A  New 
England  Boyhood,"  from  my  own  memories, 
in  such  form  that  they  might  be  published 
in  the  Atlantic  Monthly.  And  this  I  was 
glad  to  do.  Those  chapters,  published  in  that 
magazine  in  1892,  make  more  than  half  of  the 
book  now  in  the  reader's  hands. 

I  have  to  say  this  by  way  of  introduction, 
because  here  is  my  only  excuse  for  what  else 
seems  the  conceit  of  introducing  little  bits 
of  personal  experience  into  my  story,  of  no 
earthly  value  to  anybody  but  myself  and  my 
children,  excepting  as  they  illustrate  the  sim- 


INTRODUCTION.  V 

plicity  and  ease  of  a  phase  of  New  England 
life,  which  has  now  wholly  passed  away.  I  do 
not  flatter  myself  that  I  have  succeeded  in 
presenting  to  the  reader  the  simplicity  and  the 
dignity  of  that  life,  so  curiously  combined  as 
simplicity  and  dignity  were.  Those  people, 
in  the  little  seaport  of  Boston,  lived  and  moved 
as  if  they  were  people  of  the  most  important 
city  of  the  world.  What  is  more,  they  meant 
to  make  Boston  the  purest,  noblest,  and  best 
city  in  the  world.  And  they  lived  there  in 
some  forms  of  social  life  which  would  have  be 
come  princes  of  sixty-four  quarterings,  with 
some  which  were  identical  with  those  of  the 
log-cabin.  Every  man  of  them  was  an  Ameri 
can,  and  believed  to  the  sole  of  his  feet  that 
there  was  no  fit  government  for  men  but  that 
of  a  republic.  All  the  same,  their  leaders, 
men  and  women,  were  dignified,  elegant,  and 
gracious  in  their  bearing  and  manner;  and 
there  was  no  prince  in  the  world  who  better 
understood  the  bearing  and  the  customs  of 
gentlemen  and  gentlewomen. 

It  was  a  good  place  in  which  to  be  born,  and 
a  good  place  in  which  to  grow  to  manhood. 


vi  INTRODUCTION. 

From  1630,  when  Boston  was  founded  by  an 
important  branch  of  Winthrop's  colony,  to 
1826,  when  these  reminiscences  begin,  it  had 
grown,  slowly  and  not  very  regularly,  from  a 
little  hamlet  of  settlers,  sick  and  half  starved, 
to  a  brisk  commercial  town  of  about  forty-five 
thousand  people.  There  is  no  better  descrip 
tion  than  Mr.  Emerson's,  which  I  heard  him 
read,  fresh  from  his  own  notes,  on  the  platform 
of  Faneuil  Hall,  on  the  centennial  of  the 
Boston  Tea-Party,  December  16,  1873.  It  was 
said  that  he  had  written  the  last  verses  in  the 
train  as  he  rode  from  Concord.  The  notes 
in  his  hand  were  on  various  bits  of  paper, 
and  I  believe  that  the  poem  was  born  on 
that  day. 

The  rocky  nook,  with  hill-tops  three, 
Looked  eastward  from  the  farms, 

And  twice  each  day  the  flowing  sea 
Took  Boston  in  its  arms. 


The  wild  rose  and  the  barberry  thorn 
Hung  out  their  summer  pride, 

Where  now  on  heated  pavements  worn 
The  feet  of  millions  stride. 


INTRODUCTION.  Vll 

Fair  rose  the  planted  hills  behind 

The  good  town  on  the  bay, 
And  where  the  western  hills  declined 

The  prairie  stretched  away. 


Each  street  leads  downward  to  the  sea, 
Or  landward  to  the  west. 

The  first  certain  description  of  the  place  is 
that  in  Bradford  :  "  We  came  into  the  bottom 
of  the  bay ;  but  being  late  we  anchored  and 
lay  in  the  shallop,  not  having  seen  any  of  the 
people.  The  next  morning  we  put  in  for  the 
shore.  There  we  found  many  lobsters  that 
had  been  gathered  together." 

This  camping  ground  is  Copp's  Hill  at  the 
very  northern  end  of  the  peninsula.  The 
lobsters  were  taken  near  the  landing  of  the 
ferry,  which  afterward  took  men  to  Charles- 
town.  If  Tom,  Dick,  and  Harry  had  been  left 
to  their  own  devices,  if  no  paternal  or  frater 
nal  government  had  protected  their  industries 
and  done  better  for  them  than  nature  did,  if 
successive  generations  had  been  left  to  do 
what  nature  bade,  as  is  now  the  theory  of  the 
"  let  alones,"  making  head  again  in  the  midst 


INTRODUCTION. 

of  our  matchless  prosperity — a  few  hundred  of 
us,  who  had  survived  in  the  struggle  for  exist 
ence,  would  be  trapping  lobsters  at  the  North 
End  to-day.  Where  the  other  hundred  thou 
sand  people  would  be,  who  now  inhabit  the  old 
peninsula,  I  do  not  know — or,  indeed,  if  they 
would  have  been  at  all. 

A  peninsula  it  was  ;  but  no  geographer  in 
his  senses  would  give  that  name  now  to  the 
bulging  cape  which  has  expanded  on  either 
side  of  the  old  almost  island.  At  high  tides, 
in  gales,  the  water  washed  across  what  was 
then  called  the  Neck,  and  is  still  called  so  by 
old-fashioned  people.  Three  hills,  of  which 
the  highest  was  138  feet  high  from  the  sea, 
broke  the  surface  of  the  peninsula,  and  of 
these  the  top  of  the  highest  was  broken  again 
by  three  smaller  hills.  This  highest  hill  is 
Beacon  Hill.  Copp's  Hill  was  at  the  north, 
and  Fort  Hill  on  the  east.  For  the  conven 
ience  of  trade  Fort  Hill  has  been  entirely 
removed,  and  a  little  circular  bit  of  greensward 
marks  the  place  where,  in  my  boyhood,  was  a 
hill  fifty  feet  high. 

In  old  days  a  canal  was  cut  across  the  town, 


INTRODUCTION.  IX 

separating  the  Copp's  Hill  elevation  from 
those  south  of  it.  A  tidal  mill  was  arranged 
here,  by  retaining  the  water  at  high  tide  in 
the  mill-pond,  and  letting  it  dribble  out  when 
the  tide  had  fallen.  The  average  rise  and  fall 
of  the  tide  in  Boston  is  about  ten  feet,  so  that 
this  contrivance  gave  power  enough  for  grind 
ing  corn  when  there  was  corn  to  grind.  The 
mill-pond  was  filled  up  about  the  period  to 
which  the  reminiscences  in  this  book  belong. 

If  this  book  should  stray  into  the  hands  of 
persons  who  do  not  know  the  physical  Boston 
of  to-day,  or  the  physical  Boston  of  history,  it 
may  be  worth  while,  ' '  for  the  greater  caution, ' ' 
as  the  lawyers  say,  to  give  an  outline  map  of 
both.  In  the  sketch  in  the  margin  the  white 
nucleus  represents  the  Boston  which  Bradford 
found,  and  where  we  should  have  been  catch 
ing  lobsters  had  there  been  no  paternal  govern 
ment  or  other  government,  until  to-day.  The 
outline  of  the  larger  cape,  as  I  have  called  it, 
is  the  outline  of  Boston  now,  when  what  we 
called  the  "flats"  have  been  filled  in  by  suc 
cessive  improvements — if  improvements  they 
are.  Any  person,  who  desires  to  know  my 


OLD  BOSTON  AND  NEW 


INTRODUCTION.  XI 

opinion  on  such  improvements,  may  consult 
the  study  I  have  made  on  similar  subjects  in 
my  book  called  "Sybaris."  I  am,  however, 
an  optimist,  and  after  a  thing  has  been  done  I 
accept  it.  I  dictate  these  words  as  I  lie  on  my 
back  on  a  comfortable  sofa  in  a  comfortable 
room  in  the  vestry  of  the  church  which  stands 
where,  in  boyhood,  I  could  have  skated,  or 
could  have  caught  smelts  for  the  next  day's 
breakfast.  For  the  temperature  outside,  at 
this  moment,  is  ten  degrees  above  zero,  a  tem 
perature  which  was  very  favorable  for  the 
catching  of  smelts  in  those  days. 

Politically  or  socially,  the  period  between 
1820  and  1835  belongs  to  the  period  when 
Boston  was  turning  to  internal  commerce  and 
the  development  of  manufacture,  and  was 
relinquishing  that  maritime  commerce  which 
had  created  her.  The  Southern  and  Western 
leaders  of  the  country,  not  disinclined  to 
thwart  the  maritime  industries  of  New  England, 
had  attempted  to  build  up  what  Mr.  Clay 
called  "  the  American  system  "  of  home  manu 
facture.  So  soon  as  this  system  established 
itself,  the  New  Englanders  adapted  themselves 


Xll  INTRODUCTION. 

to  the  new  conditions,  and  set  up  their  manu 
factories  on  the  borders  of  their  streams— 
Pawtucket,  Waltham,  Lowell,  and,  afterwards, 
Manchester,  Lawrence,  and  Holyoke  came 
into  being.  The  necessity  of  closer  communi 
cation  with  the  interior  was  as  distinctly  felt 
in  New  England  as  in  the  Middle  States.  The 
Middlesex  Canal,  an  elaborate  system  of  turn 
pikes,  and,  later  yet,  the  present  system  of 
railroads  were  established.  But  in  the  year 
1830  Boston  still  retained  a  large  East  Indian 
and  European  commerce.  It  is  interesting  to 
see  how  largely  the  exports  were  still  products 
of  the  forests  and  the  fisheries. 

And,  not  to  smirch  the  pages  of  this  little 
book  with  any  of  the  ashes  of  theological  con 
troversy  which  is  long  since  dead,  it  may  be 
mentioned  that,  in  the  years  between  1820  and 
1840,  Boston  was  the  centre  of  theological  dis 
cussion,  which  undoubtedly  greatly  quickened 
the  religious  life  of  New  England.  In  those 
years  there  was  a  certain  expectation  of  a 
speedy  improvement,  not  to  say  revolution,  in 
social  order,  such  as  men  do  not  often  expe 
rience.  Dr.  Channing  was  preaching  the  gos- 


INTRODUCTION.  Xlll 

pel  of  the  divinity  of  man.  Dr.  Tuckerman, 
Frederick  Gray,  Charles  Barnard  and  Robert 
Cassie  Waterston,  with  others,  were  introduc 
ing  practical  illustrations  of  improvement. 
There  was  plenty  of  money,  and  the  rich  men 
of  Boston  really  meant  that  here  should  be  a 
model  and  ideal  city.  The  country  was  pros 
perous  ;  they  were  prosperous,  and  they  looked 
forward  to  a  noble  future. 

At  the  same  time  they  had  the  advantage  of 
having  a  university  close  under  their  lee,  which 
they  were  themselves  managing.  They  had 
started  their  Athenaeum,  with  the  collections  of 
pictures. and  statues,  and  a  good  library.  They 
had  a  good  deal  of  leisure  ;  and  a  certain  inter 
est,  not  wholly  the  interest  of  dilettanti,  in 
fine  arts  and  literature,  gave  distinction  to  the 
little  town. 

Into  such  a  community  it  was  my  good  for 
tune  to  be  born,  on  the  morning  of  the  3d  of 
April,  1822. 

I  do  not  attempt  anything  so  ambitious  as 
an  autobiography.  But  a  man  sees  with  his 
own  eyes,  and  a  boy  even  more  than  a  man  ; 
and  what  I  remember  of  a  New  England  boy- 


INTRODUCTION. 

hood  is  what  mine  was,  not  what  anyone  else 
lived  through  in  the  same  time.  There  will 
be  a  certain  convenience,  then,  to  the  reader 
if  he  knows  a  little  of  the  household  and  family 
in  which  the  boyhood  was  spent  which  in  these 
chapters  is  described. 

In  the  ship  Lion,  in  the  voyage  of  Win- 
throp's  fleet,  came  to  Boston  Robert  Hale, 
who  was,  I  suppose,  of  the  Hales  of  Kent. 
Searching  in  the  wills  of  that  time  in  Canter 
bury,  in  Kent,  I  found  this  : 

7.  "To  my  sonne  John  Hales,  five  pounds 
and  my  best  silver  guilt  sword,  yet  neverthe 
less  and  on  this  condition" — that  he  do  not 
intercept  the  execution  of  the  rest  of  the 
will. 

And  I  have  a  fancy  that  that  son  was  cut  off 
with  a  "guilt  sword "  because  he  was  a  Puri 
tan,  while  the  rest  of  the  Hales,  or  Haleses, 
were  very  High  Church.  So  High  Church 
have  they  been  in  later  times  that  it  was  one 
of  them,  Sir  James  Hales,  who  accompanied 
James  II.  into  exile.  Somehow  I  connect  him 
with  the  throwing  the  Great  Seal  into  the 
Thames.  Within  my  own  memory  Hales 


INTRODUCTION.  XV 

Place,  near  Canterbury,  has  become  the 
seat  of  a  Jesuit  school  for  the  training  of 
priests. 

This  Robert  Hale  is  called  a  blacksmith,  and 
he  settled  at  Charlestown,  opposite  Boston. 
He  seems  to  have  had  the  taste  for  surveying 
or  engineering  which  crops  out  in  alternate 
generations  in  the  family.  He  was  of  the 
party  which  was  sent  to  Winnipiseogee  to  run 
the  northern  line  of  Massachusetts.  The  stone 
which  they  set  there  is  to  be  seen  to  this  day. 
He  married  Joanna  Cutter.  He  sent  his  son 
John  Hale  to  Harvard  College,  where  he  was  the 
fourth  in  social  rank  of  his  class  of  eight.  He 
became  the  minister  of  Beverly,  is  the  John 
Hale  who  went  to  Quebec  as  chaplain  and  was 
taken  prisoner,  and  the  John  Hale  of  the 
Salem  witchcraft.  A  missal  given  him  by  a 
Catholic  priest  in  Quebec  is  in  the  library  of 
Harvard  College  to  this  day.  He  was  the 
grandfather,  by  his  oldest  son,  of  King  Hale,  as 
Robert  Hale  (H.  C.,  1686)  was  familiarly  called 
in  Beverly  ;  and  by  his  fourth  son,  Samuel,  was 
grandfather  of  my  father's  grandfather,  Rich 
ard  Hale,  who  lived  in  Coventry,  Conn.,  and 


XVi  INTRODUCTION. 

died  in  1802.  This  Richard  Hale  was  father 
of  Captain  Nathan  Hale  of  the  Revolutionary 
history,  and  of  Enoch  Hale,  my  grandfather, 
alluded  to  in  chapter  vii.  of  this  book. 

In  1636  Richard  Everett,  or  Everard,  appears 
in  Watertown,  and  afterwards  in  Springfield 
and  Dedham.  In  Dedham  he  died.  From 
him  came  a  line  of  farmers,  who  are  called 
captain,  deacon,  and  so  on  till  we  come  to 
Ebenezer  Everett  of  Tiot,  now  called  Nor 
wood,  a  village  of  South  Dedham.  He  was 
father  of  Rev.  Oliver  Everett  (H.  C.,  1772), 
who  was  minister  of  the  New  South  Church 
in  Boston,  and  was  my  grandfather  on  my 
mother's  side. 

For  my  father,  Nathan  Hale,  oldest  son  of 
Rev.  Enoch  Hale  above,  on  a  day  to  be  marked 
with  vermilion  with  me  and  mine,  namely, 
September  5,  1816,  married  Sarah  Preston 
Everett,  my  mother,  daughter  of  Rev.  Oliver 
Everett.  On  that  day  she  was  twenty  years 
old  ;  he  was  thirty- two. 

It  is  pity  of  pities  that  we  never  made  him 
write  "A  New  England  Boyhood"  as  he  saw 
it.  For  he  was  born  in  1784?  the  year  after 


INTRODUCTION.  XV11 

the  peace  with  England.  He  grew  up  in  the 
very  purest  conditions  of  the  simplest  and, 
indeed,  the  best  life  of  New  England.  His 
father  had  been  for  eight  years  the  minister  of 
a  frontier  town,  Westhampton,  in  the  days 
when  the  minister  was  chosen  by  the  town  in 
open  town  meeting,  was  paid  by  the  town, 
and  regarded  himself  as  personally  respon 
sible  for  the  moral  and  spiritual  life  of  every 
body  in  the  town. 

Hoeing  corn  or  potatoes  one  day  in  the 
summer  of  1800,  my  father,  a  boy  of  sixteen, 
was  called  into  his  father's  study,  where  he 
found  Dr.  Fitch,  then  the  president  of  Wil 
liams  College,  which  had  been  established  as 
a  college  seven  years  before.  Dr.  Fitch  had 
stopped  in  a  journey  across  country,  to  accept 
the  hospitalities  of  the  parsonage.  The  boy 
was  told  to  show  Dr.  Fitch  how  well  he  could 
read  Latin ;  then  he  read  to  him  from  the 
Greek  Testament,  and  Dr.  Fitch  said  he  was 
ready  to  enter  Williams  College.  His  father 
and  he  had  not  expected  that  he  would  enter 
until  the  next  year.  But  this  fortunate  visit 
of  the  president  carried  him  to  Williamstown 


INTRODUCTION. 

that  summer,  and  lie  graduated  there  in  the 
class  of  1804. 

He  and  the  other  boys  from  that  region 
used  to  ride  across  Berkshire  County  on 
horseback  when  the  college  terms  began.  A 
younger  boy  drove  the  horses  back  in  a  drove, 
and,  when  vacation  came,  took  them  to  the 
college  again  for  the  students  to  ride  back 
upon.  A  part  of  the  road  was  a  turnpike 
where  tolls  were  collected.  When  they 
approached  the  gate  they  would  all  dismount, 
and  on  foot  drive  the  horses  in  front  of  them, 
and  demand  the  right  of  passing  at  the  rate 
for  a  drove  of  horses  or  cattle.  Nothing, 
as  they  said,  was  said  about  saddles  or 
bridles.  When  I  asked  once  if  the  toll-keeper 
submitted  meekly  to  this,  I  was  told  that 
they  generally  had  to  pay  the  full  toll,  but 
that  the  tollman  expected  to  treat  them  to 
cider  all  round. 

The  college  was  divided  into  two  societies — 
the  Philomathian  and  the  Philotechnian.  I 
think  the  latter  exists  in  Williamstown  in 
some  form  still.  I  have  seen  the  records  of 
debates :  "Question,  Whether  the  purchase  of 


INTRODUCTION.  XIX 

Louisiana  is  desirable.  Decided  in  the  nega 
tive,  17  to  1."  For  they  were  high  and  hot 
Federalists. 

I  have  my  father's  part  when  he  graduated. 
It  is  on  the  improvements  in  social  order 
made  in  the  last  fifty  years. 

So  soon  as  he  left  college  he  engaged  as 
tutor  in  the  family  of  John  J.  Dickinson  in 
Troy,  not  far  from  Williamstown.  But  he 
went  home  first,  and  on  his  way  to  Troy  went 
to  the  city  of  New  York  for  the  first  time. 
The  population  was  only  about  seventy-five 
thousand.  It  was  three  years  before  Fulton's 
Clermont,  his  first  steamboat,  went  up  the 
Hudson,  and  the  tradition  in  our  family  is 
that  my  father  went  up  the  river  in  a  sloop  to 
Troy,  was  a  fortnight  in  going,  and  read 
through  Gibbon's  "Decline  and  Fall"  on 
the  way. 

Judging  from  his  accomplishments  Wil 
liams  College  must  have  done  its  work  well. 
He  read  Latin  well  and  with  pleasure  to  the 
end  of  his  life.  He  did  not  keep  up  his  Greek 
with  the  same  interest,  but  he  was  an  accurate 
Greek  scholar.  He  was  a  mathematician  of 


XX  INTRODUCTION. 

high  rank  in  the  mathematics  of  those  days, 
and  was  afterward  quite  the  peer  in  those 
lines  of  the  engineers  with  whom  he  worked 
on  the  great  public  works  of  which  he  had  the 
charge.  He  studied  some  Hebrew  in  college, 
and  could  always  read  a  little.  I  asked  him 
once  if  this  was  with  any  thought  of  being  a 
minister,  but  he  said,  "No,  but  there  was 
nothing  else  to  study."  He  had  to  learn  his 
French  and  German  afterward,  and  did.  I 
think  that  in  my  boyhood  there  were  more 
German  books  in  our  house  than  perhaps  in 
any  other  house  in  Boston.  But. that  is  say 
ing  very  little ;  as  late  as  1843  I  could  buy 
no  German  books,  even  in  Pennsylvania,  but 
Goethe  and  Schiller  and  the  Lutheran  hymn- 
book. 

After  a  year  in  Troy  he  received  the  appoint 
ment  of  preceptor  in  mathematics  in  Exeter 
Academy*  in  New  Hampshire.  He  crossed 
Massachusetts  to  Boston  on  his  way  to  Exeter. 
Here  is  a  memorandum  of  the  way  in  which 
this  was  done : 

The  arrangement  of  the  stages  was  that  if  the  stages 
coming  from  Springfield  and  Northampton  had  more 


INTRODUCTION.  Xxl 

passengers  than  could  go  on  one  stage  some  of  them  had 
to  stop  ;  and  those  who  got  on  last  were  the  ones  who 
had  to  stop. 

I  arrived  at  Brookfield  at  night,  having  left  North 
ampton  in  the  morning.  The  person  who  had  come  the 
shortest  distance  was  a  lady.  She  was  in  great  distress 
that  she  could  not  go  on.  I  had  a  sort  of  desire  to  stay 
there  to  see  Howe  and  Henshaw,  but  I  should  not  have 
thought  of  staying  a  day  but  to  let  this  lady  go  on. 

At  Exeter,  in  the  charming  society  of  that 
place,  he  met  the  Peabodys  and  Alexander 
Hill  Everett,  who  was  the  other  "preceptor," 
the  preceptor  of  Greek  and  Latin.  He  gradu 
ated  at  .Harvard  in  1806.  These  two  young 
men  became  very  fond  of  each  other,  and  when, 
in  1808  my  father  determined  to  leave  Exeter 
and  come  to  Boston  to  study  law,  he  became 
acquainted  with  all  Mr.  Everett's  Boston 
friends. 

Meanwhile,  when  he  was  twelve  years  old, 
my  mother  had  been  born,  in  Dorchester,  now 
a  part  of  the  municipality  of  Boston.  Her 
father,  in  delicate  health,  had  left  his  charge 
in  1792.  Her  mother  was  a  Boston  girl,  one  of 
the  daughters  of  Alexander  Sears  Hill  and 
Mary  Richey  of  Santa  Cruz.  The  tradition 
was  that  Alexander  Sears  Hill  had  gone  to 


XXii  INTRODUCTION. 

Philadelphia  for  a  milder  climate  in  winter, 
had  fallen  in  love  with  Mary  Blchey,  and  that 
they  had  married  without  the  knowledge  of 
their  parents.  A  handsome  couple  they  were, 
as  the  fall-length  portraits  by  Copley  attest  to 
this  day.  They  both  died  young.  I  have  the 
love-letters  which  passed  between  Lucy  Hill 
and  Oliver  Everett ;  it  was  a  happy  marriage 
until  his  death,  but  he  died  in  consumption  in 
1802.  After  this  the  family  Jived  sometimes 
in  the  North  End  of  Boston,  sometimes  in  the 
old  house  in  Dorchester.  In  1812  Edward 
Everett,  the  third  son,  was  ordained  minister  of 
Brattle  Street  Church  in  Boston.  He  was  not 
married — was,  indeed,  but  twenty  years  old. 
His  mother  and  sister  moved  into  the  parsonage 
in  Court  Street,  where  are  now  the  offices 
of  Adams  Express.  Mr.  Everett  left  that 
church  in  the  year  1815,  and  my  grandmother 
and  her  family  established  themselves  in  a 
house  in  Bumstead  Place — a  place  which 
exists  no  longer — and  there  my  mother  was 
married. 

The  newly  married  couple  lived  first  in  Ash- 
burton  Place,  then  called  Somerset  Court,  in  a 


INTRODUCTION.  Xxiii 

house  now  standing.  A  year  or  two  after  they 
removed  to  Tremont  Street  to  a  house  which 
has  been  absorbed  by  Parker's  Hotel,  the 
second  from  where  the  Tremont  Theatre  was 
built  in  1827.  Here  I  was  born.  The  family 
afterwards  lived  at  the  corner  of  School  Street 
in  a  house  which  also  has  been  absorbed  by 
Parker's.  In  1828  we  removed  to  No.  1  Tre 
mont  Place,  a  house  still  standing;  and  in 
1833  to  one  of  Mr.  Andre ws's  houses  in  Central 
Court,  a  property  now  covered  by  Jordan  & 
Marsh's,  just  behind  where  old  Judge  Sewall 
lived  most  of  his  life.  It  is  in  the  four 
houses  last  named  that  the  scenery  of  the 
home  life  described  in  these  chapters  is  to 
be  placed. 


CONTENTS. 


CUAPTER  PAGE 

I.  Tis  SEVENTY  YEARS  SINCE,        .       .       .  •    .  1 

II.  SCHOOL  LIFE, .  11 

III.  THE  SWIMMING  SCHOOL, 55 

IV.  LIFE  AT  HOME,  .        .        .        .        .       .       .  59 

V.  OUT  OF  DOORS, 88 

VI.  SOCIAL  RELATIONS, 125 

VII.  THE  WOULD  NEAR  BOSTON,        .       .        .  .171 

VIII.  THE  WORLD  BEYOND  BOSTON,         ...  196 

IX.  AT  COLLEGE,                                       .       .  .211 


XXV 


A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 


CHAPTER  I. 

'TIS   SEVENTY   YEARS  SINCE. 

THE  reader  and  I  ought  not  to  begin  with 
out  my  reminding  him  that  the  Boston 
of  which  I  am  to  write  was  very  different  from 
the  Boston  of  to-day.  In  1825  Boston  was  still 
a  large  country  town.  I  think  some  one  has 
called  it  a  city  of  gardens  ;  but  that  some  one 
may  have  been  I.  As  late  as  1817,  in  a  descrip 
tion  of  Boston  which  accompanied  a  show  which 
a  Frenchman  had  made  by  carving  and  paint 
ing  the  separate  houses,  it  was  said,  with  some 
triumph,  that  there  were  nine  blocks  of  build 
ings  in  the  town.  This  means  that  all  the 
other  buildings  stood  with  windows  or  doors 
on  each  of  the  four  sides,  and  in  most  instances 
with  trees,  or  perhaps  little  lanes,  between ; 
as  all  people  will  live  when  the  Kingdom  of 


2  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

Heaven  comes.  To  people  in  this  neighbor 
hood  to-day,  I  may  say  that  the  upper  part  of 
the  main  street  in  Charlestown  gives  a  very 
good  idea  of  what  the  whole  of  Washington 
Street  south  of  Winter  Street  was  then.  And, 
by  the  way,  Washington  Street  was  much 
more  often  called  Main  Street  than  by  its 
longer  name. 

The  reader  must  imagine,  therefore,  a  large, 
pretty  country  town,  where  stage-coaches  still 
clattered  in  from  the  country,  and  brought  all 
the  strangers  who  did  not  ride  in  their  own 
chaises.  Large  stables,  always  of  wood,  I 
think,  provided  for  the  horses  thus  needed.  I 
remember,  as  I  write,  Mies' s  stable  in  School 
Street,  a  large  stable  in  Bromfield  Street,  after 
ward  Streeter's,  the  stables  of  the  Marl- 
borough  Hotel  in  Washington  Street,  and  what 
seemed  to  us  very  large  stables  in  Hawley 
Street — all  in  the  very  heart  of  the  town,  and 
on  a  tract  which  cannot  be  more  than  twelve 
acres.  When,  in  1829,  it  was  reported  that  the 
new  Tremont  House  was  to  have  no  special 
stables  for  its  guests,  the  announcement 
excited  surprise  almost  universal ;  and  to  us 


'TIS   SEVENTY   YEARS   SINCE.  3 

children  the  statement  that  there  was  to  be 
a  tavern,  or  a  hotel,  without  a  sign,  was  still 
more  extraordinary.  We  were  used  to  seeing 
swinging  signs  on  posts  in  front  of  the  taverns. 
Thus  I  remember  "The  Indian  Queen"  in 
Bromfield  Street,  "The  Bunch  of  Grapes"  in 
State  Street,  "The  Lamb"  I  think  where  the 
Adams  House  now  is,  "  The  Lion  "  where  the 
Boston  Theatre  is,  and  nearly  opposite  these 
the  Lafayette  Tavern.  This  means  that  large 
pictures  of  an  Indian  queen,  a  bunch  of  grapes, 
a  lamb,  a  lion,  and  of  Lafayette  swung  back 
ward  and  forward  in  the  wind.  There  was  a 
sign  in  front  of  the  Marlborough  Tavern,  and 
one  nearly  opposite,  south  of  Milk  Street,  but 
I  do  not  remember  what  these  were.  All  these 
inns  would  now  be  thought  small.  They  were 
then  called  taverns,  and  to  New  Englanders 
seemed  very  large.  Of  course  they  were  large 
enough  for  their  purpose.  When  I  was  nine 
or  ten  years  old  my  father,  who  was  thought 
to  be  a  fanatic  as  a  railroad  prophet,  offered  in 
Faneuil  Hall  the  suggestion  that  if  people 
could  come  from  Springfield  to  Boston  in  five 
hours  an  average  of  nine  people  would  come 


4  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

every  day.  This  prophecy  was  then  consid 
ered  extravagant.  I  have  told  the  story,  in 
the  Introduction,  of  his  coming  to  Boston  for 
the  first  time,  in  1805,  when  the  Northampton 
passengers  joined  the  Springfield  passengers  at 
Brookfield.  There  was  room  in  the  carriage 
for  six  only.  He  therefore  gave  up  his  seat  to 
a  lady  who  had  pressing  duties,  and  waited 
in  Brookfield  twenty-four  hours  to  take  his 
chances  for  the  next  stage. 

The  more  important  business  streets  of  this 
town  of  Boston  were  paved  in  the  middle  with 
round  stones  from  the  neighboring  beaches, 
then  as  now  called  cobble-stones — I  do  not 
know  why  ;  but  an  accomplished  friend,  who 
reads  this  in  manuscript,  says  that  the  lapstone 
on  which  a  cobbler  stretches  his  leather  is  a 
cobble-stone.  I  recommend  this  etymology  to 
Dr.  Murray  and  Dr.  Whitney.  The  use  of 
bricks  for  sidewalks  was  just  coming  in,  but 
generally  the  sidewalks  were  laid  with  flat 
slates  or  shales  from  the  neighborhood,  which 
were  put  down  in  any  shape  they  happened 
to  take  in  splitting,  without  being  squared  at 
the  corners.  Bromfield  Street,  Winter  Street, 


'TIS   SEVENTY   YEARS   SINCE.  5 

Summer  Street,  and  Washington  Street  (old 
Marlborough  Street)  between  School  and 
Winter  seem  to  us  now  to  be  narrow  streets, 
but  they  have  all  been  widened  considerably 
within  my  memory.  Bromfield  Street  was 
called  Bromfield' s  Lane. 

On  the  other  hand,  so  far  as  I  remember  the 
houses  themselves  and  the  life  in  them,  every 
thing  was  quite  as  elegant  and  finished  as  it  is 
now.  Furniture  was  stately,  solid,  and  expen 
sive.  I  use  chairs,  tables,  and  a  sideboard  in 
my  house  to-day,  which  are  exactly  as  good 
now  as  they  were  then.  Carpets,  then  of  Eng 
lish  make,  covered  the  whole  floor,  and  were 
of  what  we  should  now  call  perfect  quality. 
In  summer,  by  the  way,  in  all  houses  of  which 
I  knew  anything,  these  carpets  were  always 
taken  up,  and  India  mattings  substituted  in 
the  "living-rooms."  Observe  that  very  few 
houses  were  closed  in  summer.  Dress  was 
certainly  as  elegant  and  costly  as  it  is  now  ;  so 
were  porcelain,  glass,  table  linen,  and  all  table 
furniture.  In  the  earlier  days  of  which  I  write, 
a  decanter  of  wine  would  invariably  have  stood 
on  a  sideboard  in  every  parlor,  so  that  a  glass 


6  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

of  wine  could  readily  be  offered  at  any  moment 
to  any  guest.  All  through  my  boyhood  it 
would  have  been  matter  of  remark  if,  when 
a  visitor  made  an  evening  call,  something  to 
eat  or  drink  was  not  produced  at  nine  o'clock. 
It  might  be  crackers  and  cheese,  it  might  be 
mince  pie,  it  might  be  oysters  or  cold  chicken. 
But  something  would  appear  as  certainly  as 
there  would  be  a  fire  on  the  hearth  in  winter. 
Every  house,  by  the  way,  was  warmed  by  open 
fires  ;  and  in  every  kitchen  cooking  was  done 
by  an  open  fire.  I  doubt  if  I  ever  saw  a  stove 
in  my  boyhood  except  in  a  school  or  an  office. 
Anthracite  coal  was  first  tried  in  Boston  in 
1824.  Gas  appeared  about  the  same  time.  I 
was  taken,  as  a  little  boy,  to  see  it  burning 
in  the  shops  in  Washington  Street,  and  to 
wonder  at  an  elephant,  a  tortoise,  and  a  cow, 
which  spouted  burning  gas  in  one  window. 
Gas  was  not  introduced  into  dwelling-houses 
until  Pemberton  Square  was  built  by  the 
Lowells,  Jacksons,  and  their  friends,  in  the 
years  1835,  1836,  and  later.  It  was  a  surprise 
to  everyone  when  Papanti  introduced  it  in 
his  new  Papanti' s  Hall.  To  prepare  for  that 


'TIS    SEVENTY   YEARS   SINCE.  7 

occasion  the  ground-glass  shades  had  a  little 
rouge  shaken  about  in  the  interior,  that  the 
white  gaslight  might  not  be  too  unfavorable 
to  the  complexion  of  the  beauties  below. 
Whether  this  device  is  still  thought  necessary 
in  ballrooms  I  do  not  know ;  but  I  suggest 
it  as  a  hint  to  the  wise. 

A  handsome  parlor  then,  differed  from  a 
handsome  parlor  now,  mostly  in  the  minor 
matters  of  decoration.  The  pictures  on  the 
walls  were  few,  and  were  mostly  portraits. 
For  the  rest,  mirrors  were  large  and  hand 
some.  You  would  see  some  copies  from  well- 
known  paintings  in  European  galleries,  and 
any  one  who  had  an  Allston  would  be  glad 
to  show  it.  But  I  mean  that  most  walls  were 
bare.  In  good  houses,  if  modern,  the  walls  of 
parlors  would  invariably  be  painted  of  one 
neutral  tint ;  but  in  older  houses  there  would 
be  paper  hangings,  perhaps  of  landscape 
patterns.  The  furniture  of  a  parlor  would 
generally  be  twelve  decorous  heavy  chairs, 
probably  hair-seated,  with  their  backs  against 
the  walls ;  a  sofa  which  matched  them,  also 
with  its  back  against  the  wall ;  and  a  heavy, 


8  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

perhaps  marble-topped  centre  table.  There 
might  be  a  rocking-chair  in  the  room  also  ; 
but,  so  far  as  I  remember,  other  easy-chairs, 
scattered  as  one  chose  about  a  room,  were 
unknown. 

Try  to  recall,  dear  reader,  or  to  imagine, 
the  conditions  of  a  town  without  any  rail 
roads,  and  without  any  steam  navigation 
beyond  fifteen  miles.  The  first  steamboat  in 
Boston  harbor  went  to  Nahant  and  back 
again,  about  1826.  The  first  steam  railway 
ran  trains  to  Newton,  nine  miles,  in  1833. 
Please  to  remember,  then,  that  everybody 
lived  in  Boston  the  year  round,  excepting  a 
handful  of  rich  people  who  had  country 
places  in  Dorchester,  Roxbury,  Newton, 
Brookline,  Watertown,  Waltham,  Brighton, 
Cambridge,  Charlestown,  or  Medford,  acces 
sible  by  a  horse  and  chaise.  What  we  call 
buggies  were  unknown,  and  a  gentleman  and 
lady  would  certainly  ride  in  a  chaise,  which 
was  not  the  English  chaise,  but  a  two-wheeled 
covered  vehicle,  hung  on  C-springs.  In  such 
a  town  the  supplies  of  food,  unless  brought 
from  the  immediate  neighborhood,  came  from 


'TIS  SEVENTY  YEARS  SINCE.  9 

the  seaboard  or  the  Western  rivers  in  sloops 
or  schooners.  We  drew  our  flour  from  points 
as  far  south  as  Eichmond.  I  remember  that, 
in  more  than  one  winter,  when  my  grand 
mother,  in  Westhampton,  had  sent  us  a  keg 
or  two  of  home  apple-sauce,  the  sloop  which 
brought  the  treasure  was  frozen  up  in  Con 
necticut  River  below  Hartford,  so  that  it  was 
four  or  five  months  before  we  hungry  children 
enjoyed  her  present.  Great  wagons  with 
large  teams  of  horses  brought  from  the  inte 
rior  such  products  as  did  not  come  in  this 
way. 

For  these  horses  and  wagons  there  were, 
on  "the  Neck"  and  beyond,  great  sheds 
and  stables.  The  country  teamster  left  his 
horses  and  his  load  there  while  he  came 
into  town  to  make  sure  where  it  was  to  be 
delivered.  To  pick  np  the  stray  corn  which 
was  scattered  in  these  sheds  great  flocks  of 
pigeons  congregated,  of  whom  a  wretched 
handful  survive  to  this  day.  I  mention  these 
little  details  to  give  some  idea  of  the  country 
fashion  of  our  lives.  Two  or  three  weeks  out 
of  town  in  summer  was  a  large  allowance 


10  A   NEW  ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

of  vacation.  Nobody  dreamed  of  closing  a 
church  in  summer.  The  school  vacation  was 
a  fortnight  and  three  days  in  August,  to 
which,  in  later  days,  was  added  first  one 
week,  and  then  two  weeks  in  June.  The 
summer  break-up  which  now  divides  every 
body's  Boston  year  was  then  wholly  unknown. 


CHAPTER  II. 

SCHOOL  LIFE. 

FTER  studying  with  great  care  Mr. 
HowelPs  "Boy's  Town"  and  Miss  Lar- 
com's  "New  England  Girlhood,"  I  have 
determined  not  to  follow  a  strict  order  of 
time.  For  better,  for  worse,  I  will  throw  in 
together  in  one  chapter  a  set  of  school 
memories  which  range  from  about  1825  for 
ten  years.  At  my  own  imprudent  request, 
not  to  say  urgency,  I  was  sent  to  school  with 
two  sisters  and  a  brother,  older  than  I,  when 
I  was  reckoned  as  about  two  years  old.  The 
school  was  in  an  old-fashioned  wooden  house 
which  fronted  on  a  little  yard  entered  from 
Summer  Street.  We  went  up  one  flight  of 
narrow  stairs,  and  here  the  northern  room  of 
the  two  bedrooms  of  the  house  was  occupied 
by  Miss  Susan  Whitney  for  her  school,  and 
the  southern  room,  which  had  windows  on 


12  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

Summer  Street,  by  Miss  Ayres,  of  whom  Miss 
Whitney  had  formerly  been  an  assistant. 
Miss  Whitney  afterwards  educated  more  than 
one  generation  of  the  children  of  Boston 
families.  I  supposed  her  to  be  one  of  the 
most  aged,  and  certainly  the  most  learned, 
women  of  her  time.  I  believe  she  was  a  kind- 
hearted,  intelligent  girl  of  seventeen,  when  I 
first  knew  her.  I  also  supposed  the  room  to 
be  a  large  hall,  though  I  knew  it  was  not 
nearly  so  large  as  our  own  parlors  at  home. 
It  may  have  been  eighteen  feet  square.  The 
floor  was  sanded  with  clean  sand  every  Thurs 
day  and  Saturday  afternoon.  This  was  a 
matter  of  practical  importance  to  us,  because 
with  the  sand,  using  our  feet  as  tools,  we 
made  sand  pies.  You  gather  the  sand  with 
the  inside  edge  of  either  shoe  from  a  greater 
or  less  distance,  as  the  size  of  the  pie  requires. 
As  you  gain  skill,  the  heap  which  you  make 
is  more  and  more"  round.  When  it  is  well 
rounded  you  flatten  it  by  a  careful  pressure 
of  one  foot  from  above.  Hence  it  will  be  seen 
that  full  success  depends  on  your  keeping  the 
sole  of  the  shoe  exactly  parallel  with  the 


SCHOOL  LIFE.  13 

plane  of  the  floor.  If  you  find  you  have  suc 
ceeded  when  you  withdraw  the  shoe,  you 
prick  the  pie  with  a  pin  or  a  broom  splint  pro 
vided  for  the  purpose,  pricking  it  in  whatever 
pattern  you  like.  The  skill  of  a  good  pie- 
maker  is  measured  largely  by  these  patterns. 
It  will  readily  be  seen  that  the  pie  is  better  if 
the  sand  is  a  little  moist.  But  beggars  cannot 
be  choosers,  and  while  we  preferred  the  sand 
on  Mondays  and  Fridays,  when  it  was  fresh, 
we  took  it  as  it  came. 

I  dwell  on  this  detail  at  length  because  it  is 
one  instance  as  good  as  a  hundred  of  the  way 
in  which  we  adapted  ourselves  to  the  condi 
tions  of  our  times.  Children  now  have  car 
pets  on  their  kindergarten  floors,  where  sand 
is  unknown ;  so  we  have  to  provide  clay  for 
them  to  model  with,  and  put  a  heap  of  sand 
in  the  back  yard.  Miss  Whitney  provided  for 
the  same  needs  by  a  simpler  device,  which  I 
dare  say  is  as  old  as  King  Alfred. 

I  cannot  tell  how  we  were  taught  to  read, 
for  I  cannot  remember  the  time  when  I  could 
not  read  as  well  as  I  can  now.  There  was  a 
little  spelling-book  called  "The  New  York 


14'  A  NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

Spelling-Book,"  printed  by  Mahlon  Day. 
When,  afterwards,  I  came  to  read  about  Mali- 
Ion  in  the  book  of  Kuth,  my  notion  of  him 
was  of  a  man  who  had  the  same  name  as  the 
man  who  published  the  spelling-book.  My 
grandfather  had  made  a  spelling-book  which 
we  had  at  home.  Privately,  I  knew  that, 
because  he  made  it,  it  must  be  better  than  the 
book  at  school,  but  I  was  far  too  proud  to 
explain  this  to  Miss  Whitney.  I  accepted  her 
spelling-book  in  the  same  spirit  in  which  I 
have  often  acted  since,  falling  in  with  what  I 
saw  was  the  general  drift,  because  the  matter 
was  of  no  great  consequence.  For  reading- 
books  we  had  Mrs.  Barbauld's  "First Lessons," 
"Come  hither,  Charles,  come  to  mamma"  ; 
and  we  had  "Popular  Lessons,"  by  Miss  Rob- 
bins,  which  would  be  a  good  book  to  revive 
now,  but  I  have  not  seen  it  for  sixty  years. 

The  school  must  have  been  a  very  much 
"go-as-you-please"  sort  of  place.  So  far  it 
conformed  to  the  highest  ideals  of  the  best 
modern  systems.  But  it  had  rewards  and  pun 
ishments.  I  have  now  a  life  of  William  Tell 
which  was  given  me  as  a  prize  when  I  was  five 


SCHOOL  LIFE.  15 

years  old.  By  way  of  showing  what  was  then 
thought  fit  reading  for  boys  of  that  age  I  copy 
the  first  sentence:  "Friends  of  liberty,  mag 
nanimous  hearts,  sons  of  sensibility,  ye  who 
know  how  to  die  for  your  independence  and 
live  only  for  your  brethren,  lend  an  ear  to  my 
accents.  Come !  hear  how  one  single  man, 
born  in  an  uncivilized  clime,  in  the  midst  of 
a  people  curbed  beneath  the  rods  of  an 
oppressor,  by  his  individual  courage,  raised 
this  people  so  abased,  and  gave  it  a  new 
being" — and  so  on,  and  so  on.  My  brother 
Nathan  had  "Rasselas"  for  a  prize,  and  my 
sister  Sarah  had  a  silver  medal,  "  To  the  most 
amiable,"  which  I  am  sure  she  deserved, 
though  the  competition  extended  to  the  whole 
world. 

But  these  were  the  great  prizes.  In  an  old 
desk,  of  which  the  cover  had  been  torn  off,  in 
the  closet  at  the  left  of  the  fireplace,  were  a 
number  of  bows  made  of  yellow,  pink,  and 
blue  ribbon.  When  Saturday  came,  every 
child  "  who  had  been  good"  during  the  week 
was  permitted  to  select  one  of  these  bows, 
choosing  his  own  color,  and  to  have  it  pinned 


16  A   NEW  ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

on  his  clothes  under  his  chin  to  wear  home. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  he  had  been  very  bad,  he 
had  a  black  bow  affixed,  willy  nilly.  I  hardly 
dare  to  soil  this  page  with  the  tale,  but  there 
was  an  awful  story  that  a  boy,  whom  I  will 
call  Charles  Waters,  unpinned  his  black  bow 
and  trod  it  in  the  dirt  of  the  street.  But  I 
hasten  to  add,  that  in  that  innocent  com 
munity  no  one  believed  this  dreadful  story. 
Indeed,  it  was  whispered  from  one  to  another, 
rather  as  an  index  of  what  terrible  stories 
were  afloat  in  the  world  than  with  any  feeling 
that  it  could  possibly  be  true. 

It  is  certainly  a  little  queer  that  in  after 
years  one  remembers  such  trifles  as  this,  and 
forgets  absolutely  the  weightier  matters  of  the 
law ;  how  he  learned  to  read  and  write ;  how 
he  fought  with  the  angel  of  vulgar  fractions 
and  compelled  him  to  grant  a  blessing  ;  how, 
in  a  word,  one  learned  anything  of  importance. 
But  so  it  is ;  and  thus,  as  I  have  said,  I  have  no 
memory  of  any  time  when  I  could  not  read  as 
well  as  I  can  now.  Perhaps  that  is  the  reason 
why  I  am  too  apt  to  rank  teachers  of  elocution 
with  dancing-masters  and  fencing-masters,  and 


"I  WAS  KEAUIJNO   A   BOOK   WITH   PKKFKCT   SATISFACTION.' 

— Page  17. 


SCHOOL   LIFE.  17 

other  professors  of  deportment.  Dear  Miss 
Whitney  must  have  taught  us  well,  or  we 
should  have  remembered  the  process  more 
sadly. 

If  this  is  a  book  of  confessions  I  ought  to 
tell  my  crimes,  and  one  sin  I  certainly  com 
mitted  at  Miss  Whitney's  school.  But  alas,  I 
do  not  know  what  it  was,  and  I  never  did. 
Only  this  I  know.  We  were  all  too  small  to 
go  home  through  Main  Street  alone.  Fullum 
came  for  us  at  twelve,  and  again  at  five  in  the 
afternoon.  Who  Fullum  was  shall  appear  by 
and  by.  One  day,  when  Fullum  came  at  noon, 
he  found  me  seated  in  a  large  yellow  chair  in 
the  middle  of  the  school-room.  I  was  reading 
a  book  with  perfect  satisfaction.  So  soon  as 
Fullum  appeared,  I  was  lifted  from  the  chair 
and  my  "things"  were  put  on.  When  we 
were  in  the  street  Fullum  said,  "What  have 
you  been  doing  that  was  naughty,  doctor?" 
I  told  him,  with  perfect  sincerity,  that  I  had 
done  nothing  wrong.  But  this  he  did  not 
believe.  He  reminded  me  of  what  I  then  recol 
lected,  that  that  yellow  chair  was  always  a  seat 
of  punishment.  I  had  certainly  never  seen 


18  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

any  one  in  it  before — unless  it  were  Miss  Whit 
ney  herself  —  excepting  the  sinners  of  the 
school,  placed  there  for  punishment.  But  alas, 
it  had  not  occurred  to  any  one  to  tell  me  why 
I  was  put  there  ;  and  as  my  own  conscience 
was  clear,  I  have  not  known  from  that  day  to 
this  what  my  offence  was. 

I  could  probably  without  much  difficulty 
make  a  volume  on  Miss  Whitney's  school,  and 
the  various  aspects  of  life  as  they  there  pre 
sented  themselves  to  me.  But  these  papers 
must  be  severely  condensed,  and  I  omit  such 
details.  To  me  personally  they  have  a  little 
value,  as  bearing  on  the  question  how  far  back 
our  memory  really  runs.  There  is  a  French 
man  who  says  that  he  recollects  the  relief  pro 
duced  on  his  eyes  when  he  was  a  baby,  thirty- 
six  hours  old,  and  a  nurse  lowered  a  curtain  to 
screen  him  from  the  light.  I  am  not  able  to 
fix  any  facts  as  early  as  this  ;  but  I  am  inter 
ested  in  the  observation  that,  among  these 
early  recollections  of  Miss  Whitney,  there  is 
not  included  the  slightest  memory  of  my  first 
interviews  with  her.  I  had  a  brother  and  two 
sisters  older  than  myself,  who  were  my  home 


SCHOOL   LIFE.  19 

playmates.  I  saw  them  go  to  school  from  day 
to  day,  and  I  finally  cried  because  I  wanted  to 
go  with  them.  Miss  Whitney  was  therefore 
persuaded  to  receive»a  pupil  two  years  old  at 
the  school.  It  speaks  well  for  her,  I  think, 
that  she  found  it  possible  to  adapt  such  a 
young  gentleman  to  the  exercises  of  the 
academy. 

This  makes  me  think,  as  I  have  said,  that 
those  exercises  must  have  been  conducted 
on  the  individual  plan.  But  my  chief  mem 
ories  of  the  school  are  of  conducting  observa 
tions,  similar  to  TyndalFs,  on  the  eifect  pro 
duced  by  sunlight  upon  dust  floating  in  the 
air.  Such  luxuries  as  window-shades  or  blinds 
were  unknown ;  if  the  sun  shone  in  on  the 
south  side  of  the  room  you  shut  an  inside  shut 
ter.  This  reminds  me  that  inside  shutters  are 
almost  wholly  unknown  to  the  rising  gener 
ation,  but  then  every  house  of  which  I  knew 
anything  had  them.  At  the  top  of  this  shutter, 
which  was  of  panelled  wood,  a  heart  was  cut, 
so  as  to  let  a  little  light  into  the  room  when  the 
shutters  were  closed.  It  will  readily  be  seen 
that  this  heart  made  very  curious  forms  on  the 


20  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

floating  dust  in  the  school-room.  What  with 
the  manufacture  of  sand  pies  and  other  enter 
prises  going  on,  there  must  have  been  a  good 
deal  of  dust  in  the  school-room,  and  I  remember 
far  better  the  aspects  of  this  dust,  as  the  sun 
lighted  it  and  as  it  floated  in  different  cur 
rents,  than  I  do  any  single  lesson  which  I 
acquired  from  books. 

It  will  give  some  idea  of  the  simplicity  of 
manners  and  of  the  quietness  of  the  little  town 
if  I  tell  how  "  we  four  "  —by  which  I  mean  the 
four  oldest  children  of  my  father's  family- 
went  to  school  and  returned,  in  the  winter. 

In  winter  Fullum  put  my  two  sisters,  my 
brother,  and  myself  into  a  little  green  sleigh 
which  he  had  had  made,  in  which  he  dragged 
us  over  the  snow  to  school.  I  believe  that  if 
any  Fullum  of  to-day  should  start  from  the 
upper  door  of  the  Parker  House,  and  drag 
four  little  children  down  School  Street,  through 
Washington  Street,  to  Summer  Street,  and 
stop  at  a  door  opposite  Hovey's,  he  would 
attract  a  fair  share  of  attention.  But  there 
was  room  enough  for  all  then.  The  "  main 
street"  was  what  the  chief  street  of  a  good 


SCHOOL  LIFE.  21 

country  town  would  be  now,  and  this  equipage 
seemed  strange  to  nobody. 

School  kept  only  in  the  morning  on  Satur 
day,  and  Thursday  afternoon  was  always  a  holi 
day,  in  memory  of  the  "Thursday  lecture."  * 
But  as  the  lecture  was  delivered  at  eleven 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  every  school  kept 
until  twelve,  there  was,  of  course,  no  real  con 
nection  between  the  holiday  and  the  lecture. 
The  half-holiday  was  changed  to  Wednesday, 
a  few  years  later  than  the  time  I  am  speaking 
of.  It  is  on  this  account  that  Wednesday  and 
Saturday  appear  to  me,  to  this  moment,  the 
happiest  days  of  the  week.  For  I  may  as  well 
say,  first  as  last,  that  school  was  always  a  bore 

*The  Thursday  lecture  was  a  regular  function,  in  which 
one  of  the  Congregational  ministers  of  Boston  addressed  such 
audiences  as  came  together  on  Thursday.  At  this  time  the 
congregation  consisted  simply  of  the  ministers  of  the  town 
and  neighborhood,  and  such  ladies,  generally  past  youth,  as 
liked  to  go  to  hear  the  city  clerk  read  the  intentions  of  mar 
riage.  The  law  then  required  that  these  intentions  should  be 
read  three  times  before  some  public  assembly,  and  the  Thurs 
day  lecture  was  dignified  by  the  name  of  a  public  assembly. 
But  in  older  times  the  lecture  had  been  much  more  important. 
To  tell  the  whole  truth,  the  restrictions  in  England,  on  such 
week-day  addresses  as  were  made  by  distinguished  preachers, 
drove  the  particular  thorn  in  the  side  of  the  Puritan  which  did 


22  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

to  me.  I  did  not  so  much  hate  it,  as  dislike 
it,  as  a  necessary  nuisance.  I  think  all  my 
teachers  regarded  it  as  such  ;  I  am  sure  they 
made  me  so  regard  it. 

Just  before  I  was  six  years  old  I  was  trans 
ferred  from  Miss  Whitney's  school  to  another 
school  which  was  in  the  immediate  neighbor 
hood,  being  in  the  basement  of  the  First 
Church,  which  was  then  in  Chauncy  Street. 
It  stood,  I  think,  just  where  Coleman  &  Mead's 
great  store  is  to-day.  There  were  three  or  four 
large  rooms  under  the  church,  which  were 
rented  as  school-rooms  ;  and  it  being  thought 
that  I  was  large  enough  to  go  to  a  man's 


most  to  drive  him  to  his  new  home  in  the  West.  Cotton  and 
the  other  preachers  had  all  been  imprisoned,  or  threatened 
with  being  imprisoned,  because  they  would  deliver  these 
week-day  lectures.  The  people  who  emigrated  were  abso 
lutely  determined  that  they  would  hear  them,  and  that  is  prob 
ably  the  reason  why  the  reader  and  I  are  in  this  country — 
because  our  ancestors  chose  to  go  to  church  in  the  middle  of 
the  week.  When  they  came  here  they  established  the  Thurs 
day  lecture.  Cotton's  fame  and  eloquence  were  such  that  the 
Thursday  lecture  gave  Boston  its  pre-eminence  in  the  Bay,  a 
pre-eminence  which  it  did  not  have  before  Cotton  arrived.  So 
that  the  Thursday  lecture  has  a  definite  historical  interest  to  a 
Boston  born  man.  But  the  average  Boston  man  long  since 
ceased  to  go  to  hear  it,  and  it  is  now  discontinue^. 


SCHOOL   LIFE.  23 

school,  I  was  sent  there,  to  my  great  delight, 
with  my  friend  Edward  Webster.  We  were 
very  intimate  from  days  earlier  than  this,  of 
which  I  will  speak  in  another  chapter,  and  it 
was  a  great  pleasure  to  us  that  we  could  go  to 
school  together.  He  had  been  at  Miss  Ayres's, 
so  that  only  an  entry  parted  us.  There  was 
no  thought  of  sending  me  to  a  public  school. 

My  father  and  mother  had  both  very 
decided,  and,  I  have  a  right  to  say,  very 
advanced,  views  on  matters  of  education  ;  and 
advanced  education  was  then  a  matter  every 
where  in  the  air.  The  Boston  Latin  School 
had  been  made  a  first-rate  school  for  prepar 
ing  boys  for  college,  under  the  eye  and  care 
of  Benjamin  Apthorp  Gould,  some  ten  years 
before.  But  there  was  no  public  school  of  any 
lower  grade,  to  which  my  father  would  have 
sent  me,  any  more  than  he  would  have  sent  me 
to  jail.  Since  that  time  I  have  heard  my  con 
temporaries  talk  of  the  common  school  train 
ing  of  the  day,  and  I  do  not  wonder  at  my 
father's  decision.  The  masters,  so  far  as  I 
know,  were  all  inferior  men ;  there  was  con 
stant  talk  of  "  hiding  "  and  "  cow-hides  "  and 


24  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

"  ferules  "  and  "  thrashing,"  and  I  should  say, 
indeed,  that  the  only  recollections  of  my  con 
temporaries  about  those  school-days  are  of  one 
constant  low  conflict  with  men  of  a  very  low 
type.  So  soon  as  a  boy  was  sent  to  the  Latin 
School — and  he  was  sent  there  at  nine  years  of 
age — all  this  was  changed  into  the  life  of  a 
civilized  place.  Why  the  Boston  people  toler 
ated  such  brutality  as  went  on  in  their  other 
public  schools  I  do  not  know,  and  never  have 
known ;  but  no  change  came  for  some  years 
after. 

For  the  next  three  years  the  only  object,  so 
far  as  I  was  concerned,  was  to  have  me  live 
along  and  get  ready  for  the  Latin  School.  I 
have  always  been  glad  that  I  was  sent  where  I 
was — to  a  school  without  any  plan  or  machin 
ery,  very  much  on  the  go-as-you-please  prin 
ciple,  and  where  there  was  no  strain  put  upon 
the  pupil.  I  disliked  it,  as  I  disliked  all 
schools  ;  but  here,  again,  I  regarded  the  whole 
arrangement  as  one  of  those  necessary  nui 
sances  which  society  imposes  on  the  individual, 
and  which  the  individual  would  be  foolish  if  he 
quarrelled  with,  when  he  did  not  have  it  in  his 


SCHOOL   LIFE.  25 

power  to  abolish  it.  I  had  no  such  power,  and 
therefore  went  and  came  as  I  was  bidden,  only 
eager  every  day  to  exchange  the  monotonies 
of  school  life  for  the  more  varied  and  larger 
enterprises  of  the  play-room  or  of  the  Common. 
I  have  said  that  advanced  education  was  in 
the  air.  It  will  be  hard  to  make  boys  and 
girls  of  the  present  day  understand  how  much 
was  then  expected  from  reforms  in  education. 
Dr.  Channing  was  at  his  best  then,  and  all 
that  he  had  to  say  about  culture  and  self- 
culture  impressed  people  intensely — more  in 
tensely,  I  think,  than  was  good  for  them. 
There  were  rumors  from  Europe  of  Fellenberg'-s 
school  at  Hof  wyl.  At  Northampton  the  Round 
Hill  School  was  started  in  1823  on  somewhat 
similar  plans.  In  England  Lord  Brougham  and 
the  set  of  people  around  him  were  discussing 
the  "  march  of  intellect,"  and  had  established 
a  Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Useful  Knowl 
edge,  whose  name  has  lived  after  it.  I  may 
say  here,  in  a  parenthesis,  that  the  first  time  I 
ever  heard  of  the  "march  of  intellect"  was 
when  I  saw  a  very  funny  play,  in  which  a 
clever  boy  named  Burke  was  the  hero  in  the 


26  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

"  march  of  intellect."  He  appeared  in  half  a 
dozen  characters,  to  teach  half  a  dozen  sub 
jects  ;  and  it  was  a  capital  satire  on  the  idea 
that  everything  could  be  taught  by  professors. 
Mr.  Webster,  Mr.  Edward  Everett,  my  father, 
and  other  gentlemen  in  their  position  estab 
lished  a  society  in  Boston  which  did  the  same 
thing.  The  reigri  of  Lyceums  and  Mechanics' 
Institutes  had  begun.  Briefly,  there  was  the 
real  impression  that  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
was  to  be  brought  in  by  teaching  people  what 
were  the  relations  of  acids  to  alkalies,  and 
what  was  the  derivation  of  the  word  "  cord- 
wainer."  If  we  only  knew  enough,  it  was 
thought,  we  should  be  wise  enough  to  keep 
out  of  the  fire,  and  we  should  not  be  burned. 
So  it  was  that  any  novelty,  when  it  was  pre 
sented  at  a  school-room  door,  was  even  more 
apt  to  be  accepted  than  it  is  now  ;  and,  as 
every  reader  of  these  lines  knows,  such  things 
are  accepted  pretty  willingly  now.  So  I  remem 
ber  that  I  was  taught  "  geometry  "  when  I  was 
six  years  old — or  that  I  thought  I  was — from 
a  little  book  called  "  The  Elements  of  Geom 
etry."  I  could  rattle  off  about  isosceles  tri- 


SCHOOL  LIFE.  27 

angles  when  I  was  six,  as  well  as  I  can  now. 
And  I  had  other  queer  smattering  bits  of 
knowledge,  useful  or  useless,  which  were 
picked  up  in  the  same  way. 

At  school  there  was  a  school  library,  from 
which  we  borrowed  books,  because  we  liked 
the  mechanism  of  it.  We  had  much  better 
books  at  home  ;  but  of  course  it  was  good  fun 
to  have  your  name  entered  on  a  book,  and  to 
return  them  once  a  week,  and  so  on. 

My  father  was  one  of  the  best  teachers  I  ever 
knew.  When  he  had  a  moment,  therefore, 
from  other  affairs  to  give  to  our  education,  it 
was  always  well  used  ;  and  we  doubtless  owed 
a  great  deal  to  him  which  we  afterwards  did  not 
know  how  to  account  for.  Among  other  such 
benefactions,  I  owe  it  that  for  these  three  or 
four  years,  when  really  I  had  nothing  to  do  but 
to  grow  physically,  I  was  placed  with  a  simple, 
foolish  man  for  a  teacher,  and  not  with  one 
of  the  drivers,  who  had  plans  and  would  want 
to  make  much  of  us.  Among  other  notions  of 
my  father,  right  or  wrong  as  the  case  may  be, 
was  this  :  that  a  boy  could  pick  up  the  rudi 
ments  of  language  quite  early  in  life.  So  the 


28  A  NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

master  was  told  that  Edward  Webster  and  I, 
and  perhaps  some  other  boys,  were  to  be 
taught  the  paradigms  of  the  Latin  grammar  at 
once.  We  also  had  given  to  us  little  Latin 
books,  which  we  spelled  away  upon.  One  was 
a  translation  of  Campe's  German  version  of 
"Robinson  Crusoe"  into  Latin.  It  was 
thought  that  the  interest  of  the  book  would 
induce  us  to  learn  the  meaning  of  the  words. 
But  the  truth  was,  we  were  familiar  with 
Defoe's  "  Robinson  Crusoe,"  and  regarded  this 
as  alow  and  foolish  imitation,  of  which  we  made 
a  great  deal  of  fun.  All  the  same,  the  agony 
with  which  some  boys  remember  their  first 
studies  of  " amo,  amas,  amat"  is  wholly 
unknown  to  me.  I  drifted  into  those  things 
simply,  and  by  the  time  I  was  sent  to  the 
Latin  School  the  point  had  been  gained,  and 
I  knew  my  "penna,  pennce,  pennce,"  and  my 
" amo,  amas,  amat"  as  well  as  if  I  had  been 
born  to  them. 

The  Latin  School  stood,  at  that  time,  where 

,  the  lower  part  of  Parker's  Hotel  is  now,  in 

School  Street.     School  Street  received  its  name 

from  this  school.     At  the  beginning  the  school 


SCHOOL  LIFE.  29 

was  on  the  other  side  of  the  street,  where  the 
Franklin  statue  now  stands.  But  when  the 
King's  Chapel  people  had  increased  so  much, 
that  they  wanted  to  enlarge  their  little  wooden 
tabernacle  and  carry  their  church  farther  down 
the  street,  about  the  middle  of  the  last  century, 
they  applied  to  the  town  for  the  use  of  the 
school-house  lot. 

This  was  the  occasion  of  a  fierce  battle  in 
more  than  one  town  meeting.  Really,  the 
question  divided  the  old  line  Puritans,  or  the 
people  who  held  to  their  traditions,  from  the 
new  people,  who  were  either  conscientious 
members  of  the  Episcopal  Church  or  were  quite 
indifferent  to  the  matter.  But  the  town  gave 
its  consent,  by  a  very  small  majority,  to  the 
removal  of  the  school-house,  and  the  King's 
Chapel  people  had  to  build  a  new  school-house 
on  the  southern  side  of  the  street.  This 
stood  till  1814,  when  a  larger  house  was 
built  in  the  same  place.  This  school-house 
made  the  side  of  what  is  now  known  as 
Chapman  Place ;  but  in  my  time  this  was 
called  Cooke's  Court,  in  honor  of  a  certain 
Elisha  Cooke,  who  was  a  very  eminent  man 


30  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

in  colonial  times.  There  were  one  or  two 
old  wooden  houses  in  the  court,  one  of  which 
was  covered  with  Virginia  creeper,  the  first  I 
ever  saw.  I  remember  thinking  that  the  berries 
of  the  Virginia  creeper  were,  in  some  sort, 
discovered  by  me,  and  that  no  one  had  known 
of  their  existence  before,  and  I  was  disap 
pointed  that  they  proved  to  be  such  poor 
eating. 

Above  the  school,  on  School  Street,  was  a 
wooden  house,  with  a  garden  in  front  of  it,  and 
further  up  still  a  new  brick  house,  where,  in  the 
early  part  of  these  reminiscences,  my  father's 
family  lived.  From  the  back  windows  of  this 
house,  when  I  was  a  very  little  boy,  I  used  to 
look  out  and  see  the  boys  at  play.  It  will 
amuse  the  boys  of  the  present  generation  to 
know  that  in  summer  most  of  them  wore  long 
calico  gowns,  quite  like  the  gowns  which  min 
isters  sometimes  wear  now,  only  without  the 
flowing  sleeves. 

Boys  were  then  admitted  into  the  Latin 
School  when  they  were  nine  years  old.  They 
were  examined  so  far  as  to  see  if  they  could 
spell  decently  and  whether  they  had  some 


SCHOOL   LIFE.  31 

\ 

slight  knowledge  of  arithmetic.  As  for  writing, 
we  were  expected  to  learn  that  after  we  entered 
the  school.  Once  there  we  were  all  put  into 
the  same  class,  and  were  set  to  studying  our 
Latin  grammar. 

We  always  came  to  school  early,  all  of  the 
fun  of  the  school  being  enjoyed  before  the  bell 
rang.  Different  classes  grouped  in  different 
corners  of  the  neighborhood,  and  talked  of  the 
school  news  or  the  news  of  the  day  with  the 
other  fellows.  We  had  some  South  End  boys, 
who  came  to  school  highly  excited  one  day 
with  the  announcement  that  an  "omnibus" 
had  been  put  upon  Washington  Street.  No 
one  had  ever  seen  an  omnibus  before.  This 
omnibus  was  called  the  Governor  Brooks,  and 
it  had  four  horses,  and  it  was  twice  as  long  as 
any  omnibus  which  any  Boston  boy  has  seen 
in  our  streets  now  for  twenty  years.  I  felt, 
afterwards,  quite  sure  that  I  rode  up  the  long 
hill  at  Granada  in  Spain  in  the  same  omnibus, 
and  I  was  terribly  afraid  that  the  linchpin 
might  give  way,  but  this  may  have  been  a 
delusion  of  mine.  The  first  "  omnibus  "  in  the 
world  was  put  on  its  work  in  Paris.  It  was 


32  A   NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

called  "La  Dame  Blanche, "  from  the  White 
Lady  of  Scott's  novel  of  "The  Monastery," 
about  the  year  1821. 

We  had  not  much  room  for  playing,  but  we 
might  take  a  turn  at  tag  or  some  other  out 
door  game  before  the  school-bell  rang.  But  at 
last,  at  eight  o'clock  in  summer  and  at  nine 
in  winter,  the  bell  began  to  ring.  It  rang  for 
five  minutes,  and  before  the  end  of  the  five 
minutes  every  boy  must  be  in  his  place.  The 
masters,  four  or  five  of  them,  had  been  stand 
ing  in  the  meanwhile  on  the  sidewalk  in  front 
of  the  school  door  ;  as  the  bell  rang  they  bowed 
to  each  other  and  repaired  one  by  one  to  their 
rooms. 

About  this  bell  there  were  various  tradi 
tions,  and  its  experience  had,  indeed,  been 
somewhat  singular.  I  believe  it  had  been  the 
bell  of  the  Huguenot  Church  lower  down  on 
the  same  street.  It  hung,  as  church  bells 
do,  on  the  wheel  in  the  cupola,  but  it  had 
long  since  been  found  that  no  rope  on  the 
wheel  would  give  to  the  bell  the  regular  stroke 
which  for  some  reason  was  thought  desirable. 
Some  strong,  quick  boy  was  therefore  sent  up 


SCHOOL   LIFE.  33 

into  the  belfry,  and  he  took  hold  of  the 
tongue  and  struck  it  rapidly  and  sharply  on 
the  side  of  the  bell.  It  may  readily  be  seen 
that  to  do  this  for  five  minutes  was  quite  an 
exhausting  bit  of  physical  labor,  but,  for  all 
that,  it  was  rather  a  privilege  to  be  permitted  to 
ring  the  bell.  For,  in  compensation  for  doing 
so  the  boy  was  awarded  certain  credits  on  his 
conduct  or  recitation  lists ;  and  the  boy  who 
found  himself  going  to  the  bad,  in  his  studies 
or  by  any  other  bad  marks,  would  ask  to  be 
assigned  to  the  bell  that  he  might  work  off 
these  misdemeanors  by  the  diligence  of  his 
bell-ringing.  Some  boys  rang  the  bell  well, 
some  rang  it  badly,  and  a  certain  distinction 
attached  to  the  .business.  I  remember  per 
fectly  that,  when  on  some  occasion  the  bell 
boy  was  absent,  Mr.  Dillaway,  looking  around 
for  a  substitute,  sent  me  up  into  the  belfry ; 
but  I  made  wretched  work  of  the  bell,  and  was 
not  sorry  to  be  relieved  before  a  minute  was 
over  by  some  more  stalwart  boy  who  was  more 
used  to  the  business. 

By  the  time  the  bell  struck  its  last  stroke 
every  boy  would  be  in  his  seat.    The  boys  of 


34  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

the  present  generation  have  little  idea  what 
such  seats  were.  At  first  they  were  simply 
long  benches  with  what  we  call  long  "  forms" 
in  front.  About  midway  of  my  school  career, 
there  were  substituted  for  these  benches  sepa 
rate  desks,  somewhat  like  what  boys  have  now, 
but  with  the  very  hardest  and  smallest  seat 
which  was  ever  contrived  for  an  unfortunate 
boy  to  wriggle  upon.  Still  we  could  open  the 
desks  and  support  them  with  our  heads  while 
we  pretended  to  be  arranging  our  books.  No 
school-boy  who  has  ever  had  the  felicity  of 
such  a  desk,  needs  to  be  told  what  various 
orgies  we  could  carry  on  under  such  shelter  of 
protection. 

A  certain  good-natured  courtesy  assigned  to 
our  school  as  a  teacher  of  penmanship  one  of 
the  old  masters  who  was  supposed  to  have  out 
lived  his  usefulness  in  the  "grammar school." 
This  was  Mr.  Jonathan  Snelling.  We  used  to 
call  him  familiarly  "Old  Johnny  Snelling," 
but  we  always  treated  him  with  the  respect 
which  was  due  to  an  old  man.  The  days  of 
quill  pens  had  not  gone  by,  and  it  was  then  a 
part  of  a  boy's  or  girl's  education  to  know 


SCHOOL   LIFE.  35 

how  to  make  a  pen  well— an  accomplishment 
which,  I  am  afraid,  is  not  now  possessed  by  all 
the  readers  of  these  lines.  Johnny  Snelling  had 
his  own  little  room  apart  from  the  room  of  the 
head-master,  and  the  boys  in  that  room  went 
in 'to  him  to  write  ;  but  the  other  boys  wrote 
in  different  hours  assigned  for  the  purpose, 
and  Johnny  Snelling  went  from  room  to  room 
to  give  them  their  instruction.  For  me,  I 
wrote  wretchedly,  and  was  always  marked  very 
low  on  the  calendar,  but  I  would  persuade  this 
good  old  gentleman  to  assign  to  me  copies 
in  German  text  or  old  English  or  the  other 
variations  from  the  deadly  monotony  of  the 
copybook,  rather  in  the  hope  that  I  might 
conciliate  the  masters,  by  the  enterprise  of 
this  break  out  into  new  fields.  At  all  events 
this  was  some  variety,  and  as  I  have  said  it  was 
on  the  monotony  of  school  life  that  my  dislike 
of  it  was  founded. 

I  entered  the  school  in  1831,  being  then  nine 
years  old.  That  was  the  minimum  for  the 
entrance  of  boys  at  that  time,  and  the  course 
was  five  years.  I  saw  Mr.  Leverett,  who  was 
the  principal  when  I  was  admitted,  but  in 


36  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

course  of  a  few  weeks  he  left  the  school  to  the 
charge  of  Mr.  Charles  Knapp  Dillaway,  who  is 
well  remembered  by  everyone  who  has  had 
anything  to  do  with  education  in  Boston  for 
the  last  sixty  years.  I  may  say  in  passing  that 
I  was  permitted  to  speak  at  his  funeral,  and  I 
could  not  but  remember  then  that,  from  the 
time  when  he  entered  the  Latin  School  in  1818 
till  he  died  in  1889,  he  had  been  personally 
connected  more  or  less  distinctly  with  our 
system  of  public  education.  He  had,  there 
fore,  seen  the  working  of  that  system  for  more 
than  a  quarter  part  of  the  period  since  it  was 
established  by  Winthrop  and  his  companions 
in  1635. 

The  system  of  the  school  was  rigid,  but  I  do 
not  think  boys  object  to  rigidity.  It  carried 
to  the  extreme  the  cultivation  of  verbal  mem 
ory.  We  had  a  very  bad  Latin  grammar, 
which  I  suppose  was  the  best  there  was,  made 
by  Mr.  Gould  himself  from  Principal  Adam's 
"Latin  Grammar,"  which  was  used  in  all 
English  schools.  "Principal  Adam"  is  the 
Edinburgh  Adam  of  whom  you  read  in  Walter 
Scott  and  other  Scotch  books.  The  late 


SCHOOL   LIFE.  37 

Joseph  Gardner,  laughing  about  such  things 
a  few  years  ago,  said  to  me,  "  I  can  remember 
the  block  on  which  I  was  standing  in  the  Place 
Vendome  in  Paris,  when,  as  by  a  revelation, 
it  occurred  to  me  that  Andrews  and  Stoddard's 
"  Latin  Grammar"  was  made  from  the  Latin 
language,  and  that  the  Latin  language  was  not 
made  from  Andrews  and  Stoddard's  gram 
mar,  as  up  to  that  moment  I  had  always  sup 
posed." 

I  am  quite  clear  that  I  went  well  through 
the  Latin  School  with  the  distinct  feeling  that 
Adam's  grammar  stated  the  eternal  truth  with 
regard  to  the  language,  and  that  Cicero  and 
the  rest  of  them  had  had  to  adapt  themselves 
to  it.  I  cannot  think  that  the  masters  thought 
so,  but  I  doubt  if  they  cared  much  about  it, 
and  certainly  they  left  that  impression  on  the 
minds  of  the  pupils.  The  first  year  of  the 
little  boys  was  spent  in  committing  the  words 
of  this  grammar  to  memory.  Unless  a  boy 
were  singularly  advanced  he  had  no  school- 
book  in  hand  from  September  to  the  next 
August  excepting  this  Latin  grammar.  I  can 
not  conceive  of  any  system  more  disposed  to 


38  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

make  him  hate  the  language ;  and  in  fact 
about  half  the  boys  withdrew  from  the  school, 
as  not  having  "a  gift  for  language,"  before 
they  had  been  there  two  years.  These  were 
generally  the  boys  of  quick  and  bright  minds, 
who  went  off  "into  business,"  as  it  was  called, 
because  they  were  thought  not  fit  to  be 
scholars.  The  professional  lines  of  life  thus 
lost  those  who  would  have  been  ornaments  in 
whatever  profession  they  had  chosen,  simply 
because  those  lads  had  not  the  verbal  memory 
to  remember  and  recall  long  lists  of  words, 
which  Adam  had  noticed,  such,  for  one  instance 
in  a  thousand,  as  had  or  had  not  an  i  before 
um  in  the  genitive  plural. 

I  will  say  in  passing,  what  I  have  often 
had  occasion  to  say  in  public,  that  it  would  be 
easy  to  prepare  a  bright  boy  or  girl  of  sixteen 
years  of  age  to  pass  the  Harvard  Greek 
entrance  examination  in  four  months  of  inter 
ested  study. 

But  I  do  not  propose  to  go  into  the  niceties 
of  education  in  these  papers.  Thanks  to  the 
prescience  of  my  father,  of  which  I  have 
spoken,  I  was  put  in  with  the  ten-year-old 


SCHOOL  LIFE.  39 

boys,  who  had  ground  through  this  mill. 
Till  this  moment  I  am  their  inferior  in  certain 
of  those  details  of  words  to  which  I  have 
referred,  but  I  enjoyed  life  at  school  a  great 
deal  better  than  they  did. 

The  "march  of  intellect"  fad  had  not 
swept  over  Boston  without  bringing  in  the 
German  notions  about  gymnasiums.  Dr.  Lie- 
ber  arrived,  an  exile  from  Germany,  with  Dr. 
Beck,  who  was  also  an  exile,  and  they  estab 
lished  a  swimming  school  where  Brimmer 
Street  is  now,  and  a  gymnasium  in  Tremont 
Street — then  called  Common  Street — at  the 
corner  of  West  Street.  That  place  was  then 
called  the  "Washington  Gardens."  Mr. 
Hartwell,  in  his  recent  interesting  essay  on 
gymnastics  in  Boston,  says  that  the  first  year 
Lieber's  gymnasium  in  the  Washington  Gar 
dens  had  two  hundred  pupils,  which  increased 
to  four  hundred  in  the  second,  and  in  the 
third  year  he  had  four  pupils.  These  figures 
show  only  too  fatally  what  was  the  fall  of  the 
athletic  thermometer.  More  learned  people 
than  I  must  say,  whether  the  system  of  gym 
nastics  carried  on  by  fixed  machinery  ever 


40  A   NEW  ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

maintains  its  popularity  for  a  long  time, 
unless  it  is  seconded  by  athletics  such  as  we 
now  class  under  that  name,  and  by  a  certain 
rivalry. 

My  brother  Nathan,  to  whom  I  owe  most  of 
what  I  am  and  have  been  in  the  world,  was 
entered  as  one  of  the  pupils  in  the  Washing 
ton  Gardens  gymnasium.  It  must  have  been 
in  the  year  1827,  or  possibly  1828,  that  he 
took  me  with  him  there.  All  that  I  remem 
ber  about  it  is  my  terror  when  I  had  climbed 
up  a  ladder  and  cut  off  my  retreat.  I  had 
seen  the  other  boys  climb  between  the  rounds 
and  slide  down  the  pole  which  supported 
the  ladder,  and  I  wished  to  do  this.  I  got 
through  the  rounds  and  then  was  afraid  to 
slide.  But  a  competent  teacher  came  up, 
instructed  me  in  the  business,  and  I  won  the 
high  courage  by  which  to  loosen  my  feet  from 
the  rounds  and  slide  safely  down.  I  went 
home  to  tell  this  story  with  delight,  but  never 
repeated  the  experiment. 

At  the  same  time — and  I  think  this  shows 
the  courage  with  which  our  education  was 
carried  on — I  made  my  first  essays  in  riding 


SCHOOL   LIFE.  41 

on  horseback.  My  father  owned  a  handsome 
horse,  with  which  he  took  our  mother  and 
some  one  of  the  children  out  to  ride  on  half- 
holidays.  On  some  occasions  another  horse, 
which  was  called  the  "  Work-bench"  from  his 
quiet  habits — white,  I  recollect — was  taken 
with  us,  saddled.  This  was  that  "we  boys" 
might  learn  to  ride.  We  were  not  permitted 
to  ride  in  the  streets  in  town,  and  father 
would  ride  the  horse  out  so  far,  while  my 
mother  drove  the  chaise.  But  once  in  the 
country  the  boy  mounted,  and  followed  the 
chaise  for  the  afternoon  tour.  At  five  years 
old  I  was  so  small  that  my  feet  would  not  reach 
the  stirrups,  and  I  rode  with  my  feet  in  the 
straps  which  sustained  the  stirrups.  All  went 
well  till,  in  South  Boston,  as  we  came  home, 
some  boys  stoned  my  horse,  and  he  ran  and  I 
was  thrown.  I  remember  repeating  the  ex 
periment  with  the  same  success  and  failure, 
and  it  ended  in  my  poor  father  having  to  ride 
the  "Work-bench"  home,  while  I  ignomini- 
ously  returned  in  the  chaise  as  I  had  started. 
The  drift  for  athletics  had  swept  over  the 
Latin  School  also,  and  the  square  yard  behind 


42  A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

the  school,  which  seemed  immense,  but  must 
have  been  only  thirty  feet  in  each  measure 
ment,  was  fitted  up  with  a  vaulting-horse,  par 
allel  bars,  and  so  on.  But,  as  the  fad  wore 
itself  out,  the  boys  were  permitted  to  destroy 
these  things ;  and  when  I  entered  the  school, 
in  1831,  there  were  only  the  vaulting-horse 
and,  perhaps,  a  pair  of  parallel  bars  left ;  and 
these  gradually  disappeared  from  the  curric 
ulum.  This  play -ground  was  the  only  play 
ground  of  the  school,  and  was  accessible  only 
to  the  boys  in  the  lowest  room.  Upstairs  we 
were  confined  to  a  very  limited  passage-way,  I 
might  call  it,  at  recess,  in  which  we  used  to 
play  "  tug-of-war,"  though  we  never  called  it 
by  that  name.  Practically  the  .recesses  were 
very  short,  for  the  simple  reason  that  they  did 
not  like  to  have  us  in  the  street. 

Earlier  than  this,  I  can  remember,  when  I 
was  only  four  or  five  years  old,  that  we  looked 
from  the  windows  of  the  house  out  upon  the 
street,  to  see  the  sports  of  the  boys  there, 
when  rather  more  liberty  was  granted  them. 
Among  these  sports  I  remember  distinctly 
seeing  the  older  boys  kick  their  pails  to 


SCHOOL  LIFE.  43 

pieces  at  the  end  of  the  school  term.  They 
would  subscribe  for  pails  in  which  to  keep  the 
water  which  they  wanted  to  drink  in  the  hot 
days  ;  and  when  the  term  was  done,  not  wish 
ing  to  leave  the  pails  to  their  successors,  they 
kicked  them  about  the  sidewalk  and  street 
until  they  were  ruined. 

To  this  school  we  repaired  at  eight  o'clock 
in  the  morning  for  the  months  between  April 
and  October,  and  at  nine  o'clock  from  the  1st 
of  October  to  the  1st  of  April.  School  lasted 
till  twelve  o'clock,  excepting  for  the  little 
boys,  who,  in  the  latter  part  of  my  time,  were 
"let  out"  at  eleven  o'clock.  School  began 
again  at  three,  and  lasted,  in  winter,  as  long 
as  there  was  light,  and  in  summer  till  six 
o'clock.  I  remember  the  bitter  terror  which 
we  had  one  afternoon,  which  must  have  been 
in  May,  1833,  when  we  were  to  go  and  see 
Fanny  Kemble  in  the  evening.  As  it  happened, 
the  school  committee  chose  to  come  that  after 
noon  for  an  examination,  and  our  class  was 
kept  in  for  the  completion  of  the  examination 
after  six  o'clock.  We  sat  there  terrified  for 
fear  the  examination  would  last  until  the  play 


44  A   NEW  ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

began  in  the  Tremont  Theatre,  hard  by.  I  am 
afraid  the  boys  of  to-day  would  consider  it 
rather  hard  lines,  if  they  were  ever  kept  at 
school  till  the  beginning  of  their  theatrical 
entertainment. 

In  Mr.  Freeman  Clarke's  autobiography 
there  is  a  charming  passage  about  his  stay  at 
this  school.  He  does  not  in  the  least  overstate 
the  admirable  democratic  effect  of  the  whole 
thing.  We  were  side  by  side  with  the  sons  of 
the  richest  and  most  prominent  men  in  Boston  ; 
we  were  side  by  side  with  the  sons  of  day 
laborers,  I  suppose.  The  odd  thing  about  it  is 
that  we  did  not  know,  and  we  did  not  care, 
whose  sons  they  were.  They  were  all  dressed 
alike,  they  spoke  equally  good  English,  their 
hands  were  equally  clean,  and  all  we  knew  of 
them  was  that  one  fellow  was  at  the  head  of 
the  class,  and  one  was  not.  There  was  a 
charming  boy  named  Carleton — Charles  Muz- 
zey  Carleton — who  was  at  the  head  of  my 
class.  He  was  a  pure,  manly,  upright,  gentle 
manly  fellow,  a  much  better  boy  than  any  of 
the  rest  of  us  were,  and  we  therefore  chose  to 
nickname  him  "  Piety  Carleton."  I  am  afraid 


SCHOOL   LIFE.  45 

we  made  him  very  unhappy  by  the  nickname, 
but  he  bore  himself  in  just  as  manly  a  way  in 
spite  of  it.  I  wish  I  had  known  him  as  a  man 
— and  I  ought  here  to  record  my  shame  that 
we  treated  him  so  ill. 

It  was  a  queer  transition  time  for  schools. 
The  present  murderous  and  absurd  system  of 
"  examinations  "  was  wholly  unknown.  Each 
master  got  along  as  well  as  he  could  with  his 
boys,  and  the  boys  got  along  as  well  as  they 
could  with  the  master.  There  was  one  head 
master,  a  sub-master,  and  two  others,  who 
were  called  ushers  on  the  printed  catalogue, 
but  were  never  so  called  by  the  boys.  What 
ever  the  age  of  these  gentlemen,  they  were 
always  called  "old."  It  was  "OldDillaway," 
"Old Gardner,"  "Old  Streeter,"  or  "Old  Ben 
jamin."  I  now  know  that  the  oldest  of  them 
was  not  thirty-five,  and  that  most  of  them  were 
not  twenty-five. 

We  were  changed  from  room  to  room,  sel 
dom  staying  in  one  room  more  than  three 
months,  but  the  highest  class  was  always  with 
the  head-master.  I  remember  one  occasion — 
I  was  about  ten  years  old — when,  to  our 


46  A  NEW  ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

delight,  we  were  ordered  upstairs  from  the 
"  English  room."  We  were  pleased  because 
it  was  known  that  the  new  master  there  was 
very  easy,  and  that  the  "fellows  did  as  they 
chose."  It  was  so,  indeed.  I  recollect  my 
amazement  when  I  saw  Hancock  cross  the 
room  without  leave,  make  a  snowball  from 
the  snow  in  a  pail,  and  carry  it  back  ostenta 
tiously  to  place  it  on  the  front  of  his  desk. 
The  snow  was  provided  for  use  on  the  stove, 
where  there  Avas  a  provision  for  a  pan  of 
water.  From  this  he  then  made  little  snow 
balls  with  which  to  pelt  the  other  boys,  all 
without  interruption  from  the  master. 

But  other  things  went  on  with  the  same  free 
dom,  which  were  of  more  import.  I  was  seated 
next  to  Hay  ward,  whom  I  then  met  for  the  first 
time,  and  who  has  since  been  a  life-long  friend. 
His  class  was  reading  Cicero's  orations.  He 
asked  me  what  I  knew  about  Cicero ;  and, 
when  I  told  him  I  knew  nothing,  he  kindly 
went  into  a  somewhat  elaborate  history  of  his 
life  and  analysis  of  his  character  as  they 
appeared  to  a  boy  of  his  age.  He  has  forgotten 
this,  but  I  remember  it  perfectly.  It  seems  to 


SCHOOL   LIFE.  47 

me  that  this  extempore  private  lecture  must 
have  lasted  the  whole  afternoon.  The  poor 
master  made  no  sort  of  interference  with  it, 
probably  glad  if  two  of  his  scholars  were  doing 
nothing  worse  than  talking. 

But  alas,  and  alas !  this  paradise  of  King 
Log  came  to  an  end  in  a  day  or  two.  This 
amiable  gentleman,  whose  name  I  have  for 
gotten,  was  removed,  and  Francis  Gardner 
was  put  in  his  place.  For  forty  years  after 
he  was  master  in  that  school,  and  is  now  well 
known  as  a  distinguished  classical  teacher  and 
editor.  That  was  his  baptism  in  a  school 
master's  life,  and  a  baptism  of  fire  it  was. 
We  were  afterwards  intimate  friends,  and  he 
told  me  once  that  his  first  month,  when  he  was 
bringing  those  wild-cat  boys  into  order,  was 
the  hardest  experience  of  his  life. 

In  the  English  room,  according  to  the  absurd 
theory  of  many  schools,  the  whole  class  was 
kept  together,  without  any  reference  to  what 
they  knew  of  the  subject.  That  is  to  say,  we 
were  classed  for  our  knowledge  of  Latin,  and 
nobody  seemed  to  care  how  much  or  how  little 
we  knew  of  arithmetic.  I  used  to  do  "the 


48  A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

sums"  and  write  down  the  numerical  answers 
in  advance,  so  far  as  my  slate  would  hold 
them.  I  was  fond  of  arithmetic,  and  so  I  would 
be  days  ahead  of  the  class.  Such  was  also  the 
case  with  Richard  Storrs  Willis,  the  eminent 
musician,  who  sat  by  me.  He  brought  to 
school  Kettell's  "  Specimens  of  American 
Poetry,"  a  book  of  that  time,  in  three  closely 
printed  octavo  volumes.  We  read  the  three 
volumes  through,  and  a  deal  of  trash  there  is 
in  them.  Still  it  was  better  than  doing  noth 
ing  ;  and  so  I  suppose  the  master  thought,  for 
he  never  interfered. 

To  me  this  was  all  a  curious  double  life.  I 
was  on  perfect  terms  of  companionship  with 
the  fellows  in  school  in  recess  and  in  the  few 
minutes  before  school.  But  as  soon  as  school 
was  over  I  rushed  home,  without  these  com 
panions,  to  join  my  brother  Nathan,  who  has 
been  spoken  of,  for  the  occupations  vastly 
more  important,  which  I  will  describe  in 
another  chapter.  The  other  fellows  would 
urge  us  to  go  down  on  the  wharves,  as  they 
did.  The  fathers  of  most  of  them  were  in  mer 
cantile  life,  for  Boston  was  still  largely  a  ship* 


SCHOOL  LIFE.  49 

ping  town.  I  can  remember  asking  one  of 
them  what  we  should  do  on  the  wharves,  with 
a  horrified  feeling  which  I  have  to  this  day 
about  any  vague  future  entertainment  of  which 
the  lines  are  not  indicated.  He  said,  "  Oh,  we 
can  go  about  the  vessels,  we  can  talk  with 
the  men."  Perhaps  they  would  be  landing 
molasses,  and  we  could  dip  straws  in  the  bung- 
holes  ;  or  once  a  cask  had  broken  open,  and 
the  fellows  had  gathered  up  brown  sugar  in 
their  hands.  To  this  day,  when  I  hear  of  per 
sons  going  abroad  or  anywhere  else  in  search 
of  an  undefined  amusement,  I  imagine  them 
dipping  straws  into  casks  of  West  India 
molasses,  and  then  drawing  those  straws 
through  their  mouths. 

For  me  and  my  brother  such  temptations 
were  idle.  Till  the  last  year  of  my  school  life 
we  had  more  attractive  work  at  home.  In  that 
year  Edward  Renouf,  afterwards  an  Episcopal 
clergyman,  told  us  that  he  had. access  to  the 
wood  wharves  on  Front  Street,  near  where  the 
United  States  Hotel  now  stands.  He- said  there 
were  no  other  fellows  there.  For  some  reason 
not  known  to  me  there  were  no  wharfingers  or 


50  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

other  attendants.  With  him,  and  possibly 
with  Atkins,  we  used  to  spend  hours  on  those 
wharves.  The  Boston  reader  will  please 
observe  that  Beach  Street  means  a  street  on 
the  beach,  and  that  Harrison  Avenue,  then 
called  Front  Street,  was  the  front  of  that  part 
of  the  town.  Why  there  were  no  keepers  on 
those  wharves  I  never  asked,  and  do  not  know. 
Whether  what  we  did  were  right  or  wrong  in 
the  view  of  magistrates  I  do  not  know.  I  do 
know  that  it  was  morally  and  eternally  right, 
because  we  thought  it  was.  That  is  one  of  the 
queer  things  about  a  boy's  conscience.  I  do 
not  remember  that,  till  the  time  when  I  dictate 
these  words,  for  nearly  sixty  years,  it  has  once 
occurred  to  me  to  ask  whose  was  the  property 
we  used  on  these  occasions,  or  what  the  owners 
would  have  said  to  our  use  of  it.  But  they 
did  not  suffer  much,  if  at  all.  There  were 
great  stacks  of  hemlock  bark,  which  was  then 
coming  into  use  in  winter  as  kindling  for 
anthracite  coal.  You  could  take  one  of  these 
pieces  of  bark,  three  or  four  feet  long,  bore 
three  holes  for  masts,  and  fit  this  hull  with 
three  masts  made  from  shingles  or  laths.  Stiff 


SCHOOL   LIFE.  51 

wrapping-paper  made  good  sails,  and  writing- 
books  were  big  enough  for  topsails.  Then  you 
could  sail  them  from  wharf  to  wharf,  on  voy 
ages  much  more  satisfactory  than  the  shorter 
voyages  of  the  Frog  Pond.  I  do  not  know  but 
that,  with  a  favorable  western  wind,  one  might 
come  out  at  Sallee,  on  the  coast  of  Morocco, 
with  the  location  of  which  we  were  familiar 
from  the  experience  of  Robinson  Crusoe  and 
Xury.  We  knew  much  more  of  that  port 
than  of  Lisbon,  Oporto,  or  Bordeaux. 

But  this  is  an  excursus  which  belongs  rather 
to  the  chapter  on  amusements.  The  home  rule 
was  absolute,  and  always  obeyed,  that  we  must 
report  at  home  as  soon  as  school  was  done. 
This  rule  undoubtedly  interfered  with  excur 
sions  to  the  wharves,  which,  indeed,  had  my 
father  been  a  shipping  merchant,  might  have 
been  more  frequent.  School  life  of  itself  had 
little  to  relieve  it  of  its  awful  monotony.  Sat 
urday  was  better  than  the  other  days,  because 
we  all  went  upstairs  into  the  master's  room  to 
hear  the  declamations.  Every  boy  spoke  from 
the  stage  once  a  month.  And  here  I  have 
heard  William  Evarts,  Fletcher  Webster, 


52  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

Mayor  Prince,  Thomas  Dawes — ah  !  and  many 
others  who  have  been  distinguished  since  as 
orators.  Phillips,  Hillard,  Sumner,  and  the 
Emersons  were  a  little  before  my  time,  but  I 
have  seen  the  prize  exercises  of  all  of  them 
among  the  treasures  of  the  school. 

I  remember  perfectly  the  first  time  I  spoke. 
It  must  have  been  in  September,  1831.  At  my 
mother's  instigation  I  spoke  a  little  poem  by 
Tom  Moore,  long  since  forgotten  by  everybody 
else,  which  I  had  learned  and  spoken  at  the 
other  school.  It  is  a  sort  of  ode,  in  which 
Moore  abuses  some  poor  Neapolitan  wretches 
because  they  had  made  nothing  of  a  rebellion 
against  the  Austrians.  I  stepped  on  the  stage, 
frightened,  but  willing  to  do  as  I  had  been 
told,  made  my  bow,  and  began  : 

Ay,  down  to  the  dust  with  them,  slaves  as  they  are! 

I  had  been  told  that  I  must  stamp  my  foot 
at  the  words,  "Down  to  the  dust  with  them," 
and  I  did,  though  I  hated  to,  and  was  sore 
afraid.  Naturally  enough  all  the  other  boys, 
one  hundred  and  fifty  of  them,  laughed  at  such 


SCHOOL  LIFE.  53 

an  exhibition  of  passion  from  one  of  the 
smallest  of  their  number.  All  the  same,  I 
plodded  on ;  but  alas !  I  came  inevitably  to 
•the  other  line : 

If  there  linger  one  spark  of  their  fire,  tread  it  out ! 

and  here  I  had  to  stamp  again,  as  much  to  the 
boys'  amusement  as  before.  I  did  not  get  a 
"good  mark"  for  speaking  then,  and  I  never 
did  afterwards.  But  the  exercise  did  what  it 
was  meant  to  do,  that  is,  it  taught  us  not  to  be 
afraid  of  the  audience.  And  this,  so  far  as  I 
know,  is  all  of  elocution  that  can  be  taught,  or 
need  be  tried  for.  In  college,  it  was  often  very 
droll  when  the  time  came  for  one  of  the  South 
ern  braggarts  to  speak  at  an  exhibition.  For 
we  saw  then  the  same  young  man  who  had 
always  blown  his  own  trumpet  loudly,  and 
been  cock  of  the  walk  in  his  own  estimation — 
we  saw  him  with  his  knees  shaking  under  him 
on  the  college  platform  because  he  had  to 
speak  in  the  presence  of  two  hundred  people. 
I  owe  to  the  public  school,  and  to  this  now  de 
spised  exercise  of  declamation,  that  ease  before 
an  audience  which  I  share  with  most  New 


54  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

Englanders.  This  is  to  say  that  I  owe  to  it  the 
great  pleasure  of  public  speaking  when  there 
is  anything  to  say.  I  think  most  public  men 
will  agree  with  me  that  this  is  one  of  the  most 
exquisite  pleasures  of  life. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  SWIMMING  SCHOOL. 

"TOY,  joy,  joy !  Of  a  hot  summer  day  in 
*J  June,  when  I  was  nine  years  old,  I  was 
asked  how  I  would  like  to  learn  to  swim. 
Little  doubt  in  the  mind  of  any  boy  who 
reads  this  what  my  answer  was.  I  and  my 
elder  brother,  who  was  twelve,  were  to  be  per 
mitted  to  go  to  the  swimming  school.  This 
was  joy  enough  to  have  that  year  marked  with 
red  in  our  history. 

As  I  have  said,  Dr.  Francis  Lieber,  who 
had  been  exiled  from  Germany  a  few  years 
before,  had  come  to  Boston,  and  had  estab 
lished  first  his  gymnasium  and  then  his  swim 
ming  school.  Swimming  schools  were  and  are 
thoroughly  established  on  the  continent  of 
Europe,  and  the  Germans  have  a  special  repu 
tation  for  skill  in  swimming.  With  the  gym 
nasium  I  had  little  or  nothing  to  do  but  what 

56 


56  A   NEW  ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

I  have  told.     I  was,  indeed,  quite  too  small  to 
be  put  through  its  exercises. 

The  swimming  school  was  in  water  which 
flowed  where  Brimmer  Street  and  the  houses 
behind  it  are  now  built.  It  was  just  such  a 
building  as  the  floating  baths  are  now  which 
the  city  maintains,  but  that  it  enclosed  a  much 
larger  space.  Of  this  space  a  part  had  a  floor 
so  that  the  water  flowed  through ;  the  depth 
was  about  five  feet.  To  little  boys  like  me  it 
made  little  difference  that  there  was  this  floor, 
for  we  could  be  as  easily  drowned  in  five  feet 
of  water  as  if  there  were  fifteen. 

With  great  delight  I  carried  down  my  little 
bathing  drawers,  which  were  marked  with  my 
own  number  so  that  they  might  always  hang 
upon  my  peg.  With  the  drawers  and  my 
towels  I  proceeded  to  a  little  cell,  just  such  as 
bathers  have  at  South  Boston  now,  with  the 
great  advantage,  however,  that  its  door  was 
made  of  sail-cloth.  You  selected  a  cell  on  the 
northern  side,  so  that  when  you  went  into  the 
water  you  could  draw  your  sail-cloth  into  the 
sun,  and  the  sun  would  heat  it  well  through ; 
then,  after  your  bath,  you  stood  wrapped  up 


THE   SWIMMING  SCHOOL.  57 

in  this  warm  linen  shroud,  and  the  luxury  was 
considered  exquisite. 

So  soon  as  you  were  undressed  and  ready — 
and  this  meant  in  about  one  minute— you  took 
your  turn  to  be  taught.  A  belt  was  put 
around  you  under  your  arms ;  to  this  belt  a 
rope  was  attached,  and  you  were  told  to  jump 
in.  You  jumped  in  and  went  down  as  far 
as  gravity  chose  to  take  you,  and  were  then 
pulled  up  by  the  rope.  The  rope  was  then 
attached  to  the  end  of  a  long  belt,  and  you 
were  swung  out  upon  the  surface  of  the  water. 
Then  began  the  instruction. 

"O-n-e; — two,  three:"  the  last  two  words 
spoken  with  great  rapidity — "one"  spoken 
very  slowly.  This  meant  that  the  knees  and 
feet  were  to  be  drawn  up  very  slowly,  but 
were  to  be  dashed  out  very  quickly,  and  then 
the  heels  brought  together  as  quickly. 

Boys  who  were  well  built  for  it  and  who 
were  quick  learned  to  swim  in  two  or  three 
lessons.  Slender  boys  and  little  boys  who 
had  not  much  muscular  force — and  such  was 
I — were  a  whole  summer  before  they  could  be 
trusted  without  the  rope.  But  the  training 


68  A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

was  excellent,  and  from  the  end  of  that  year 
till  now  I  have  been  entirely  at  home  in  the 
water.  I  think  now  that  scientific  and  sys 
tematic  training  in  swimming  is  a  very  impor 
tant  part  of  public  instruction,  and  I  wish 
we  could  see  it  introduced  everywhere  where 
there  is  responsible  oversight  of  boys  at 
school. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

LIFE  AT  HOME. 

I  AM  certainly  not  writing  my  autobiogra 
phy  ;  but  I  cannot  give  any  idea  of  how 
boys  lived  in  the  decade  when  I  was  a 
boy — that  is,  in  the  years  between  1826  and 
1836 — without  giving  a  chapter  to  home  life 
as  I  saw  it.  In  passing  I  will  say  that  I  first 
remember  the  figures  1826,  thus  combined, 
as  I  saw  them  on  the  cover  of  Thomas's 
Almanac  of  1827.  Here  Time,  with  the 
figures  1827  on  his  head,  was  represented 
as  mowing  in  a  churchyard,  where  a  new  stone 
with  the  figures  1826  was  prominent ;  1825, 
1824,  and  the  others  were  on  stones  somewhat 
overgrown  by  grass  and  sunken  in  the  ground. 
The  conceit  seemed  to  me  admirable,  and  the 
date  fixed  itself  on  my  memory. 

I  was  born  in  a  house  which  stood  where 
Parker's  larger  lunch-room  now   fronts   the 


O'J 


60  A   NEW  ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

Tremont  House.  We  moved  from  this  house 
to  that  on  the  corner  of  School  Street,  lately 
purchased  by  Mr.  Parker  to  enlarge  his  hotel, 
and  in  1828  we  moved  again  to  the  new  house, 
which  was,  and  is,  No.  1  Tremont  Place.  It 
is  now  two  or  three  stories  higher  than  it  was 
then  ;  but  some  parts  of  the  interior  are  not 
changed.  Behind  it  was  a  little  yard,  with  a 
wood-house,  called  a  "  shed,"  on  top  of  which 
the  clothes  were  dried.  This  arrangement 
was  important  for  our  New  England  childhood. 

I  was  the  youngest  of  four  children  who 
made  the  older  half  of  a  large  family.  By  a 
gap  between  me  and  my  brother  Alexander, — 
who  afterwards  was  lost  in  the  government 
service  in  Pensacola, — "we  four"  were  sepa 
rated  from  the  "three  little  ones."  It  is 
necessary  to  explain  this  in  advance,  in  a  his 
tory  which  is  rather  a  history  of  young  life  in 
Boston  than  of  mine  alone. 

My  father,  as  I  have  said,  was  an  experi 
enced  teacher  in  young  life,  and  he  never  lost 
his  interest  in  the  business  of  education.  My 
mother  had  a  genius  for  education,  and  it  is  a 
pity  that,  at  an  epoch  in  her  life  when  she 


LIFE   AT  HOME.  61 

wanted  to  open  a  girls'  school,  she  was  not 
permitted  to  do  so.  They  had  read  enough  of 
the  standard  books  on  education  to  know  how 
much  sense  there  was  in  them,  and  how  much 
nonsense.  Such  books  were  about  in  the 
house,  more  or  less  commented  on  by  us  young 
critics  as  we  grew  big  enough  to  dip  into  them. 

At  the  moment  I  had  no  idea  that  any  sci 
ence  or  skill  was  expended  on  our  training.  I 
supposed  I  was  left  to  the  great  American 
proverb  which  I  have  already  cited:  "Go  as 
you  please."  But  I  have  seen  since  that  the 
hands  were  strong  which  directed  this  gay 
team  of  youngsters,  though  there  was  no  stim 
ulus  we  knew  of,  and  though  the  touch  was 
velvet.  An  illustration  of  this  was  in  that 
wisdom  of  my  father  in  sending  me  for  four 
years  to  school  to  a  simpleton. 

The  genius  of  the  whole,  shown  by  both  my 
father  and  mother,  came  out  in  the  skill  which 
made  home  the  happiest  place  of  all,  so  that 
we  simply  hated  any  engagement  which  took 
us  elsewhere,  unless  we  were  in  the  open  air. 
I  have  said  that  I  disliked  school,  and  that  I 
did  not  want  to  go  down  on  the  wharves,  even 


62  A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

with  that  doubtful  bribe  of  the  molasses  casks. 
At  home  we  had  an  infinite  variety  of  amuse 
ments.  At  home  we  might  have  all  the  other 
boys,  if  we  wished.  At  home,  in  our  two 
stories,  we  were  supreme.  The  scorn  of  toys 
which  is  reflected  in  the  Edgeworth  books  had, 
to  a  certain  extent,  its  effect  on  the  household. 
But  we  had  almost  everything  we  wanted 
for  purposes  of  manufacture  or  invention. 
Whalebone,  spiral  springs,  pulleys,  and  cat 
gut,  for  perpetual  motion  or  locomotive  car 
riages  ;  rollers  and  planks  for  floats — what  they 
were  I  will  explain — all  were  obtainable.  In 
the  yard  we  had  parallel  bars  and  a  high  cross- 
pole  for  climbing.  When  we  became  chemists 
we  might  have  sulphuric  acid,  nitric  acid,  lit 
mus  paper,  or  whatever  we  desired,  so  our 
allowance  would  stand  it.  I  was  not  more 
than  seven  years  old  when  I  burned  off  my 
eyebrows  by  igniting  gunpowder  with  my 
burning-glass.  I  thought  it  was  wisest  not  to 
tell  my  mother,  because  it  might  shock  her 
nerves,  and  I  was  a  man,  thirty  years  old, 
before  she  heard  of  it.  Such  playthings  as 
these,  with  very  careful  restrictions  on  the 


"l  WAS   NOT   MOKE   THAN    SEVEN    YEARS  OLD   WHEN   I   BURNED 

OFF  MY  EYEBROWS." — Page  62. 


LIFE  AT  HOME.  63 

amount  of  powder,  with  good  blocks  for  build 
ing,  quite  an  assortment  of  carpenter's  tools, 
a  work-bench  good  enough,  printing  materials 
ad  libitum  from  my  father's  printing-office, 
furnished  endless  occupation. 

Before  I  attempt  any  account  of  the  home 
life  which  grew  out  of  sach  conditions  I  must 
make  a  little  excursus  to  describe  the  domestic 
service  of  those  days,  quite  different  from  ours. 
I  wish  particularly  to  describe  Fullum,  who 
out^ved  the  class  to  which  he  belonged,  and 
had,  when  he  died,  in  1886,  long  been  its  last 
representative. 

The  few  New  England  children  who  still 
read  the  Rollo  books  will  have  pleasant 
remembrances  of  Jonas  and  Beechnut,  in 
whom  Mr.  Jacob  Abbott  has  presented  for 
posterity  the  hired  boy  of  New  England  coun 
try  life.  In  life  in  a  little  town  like  Boston 
this  hired  boy  might  grow  to  be  the  hired  man, 
and,  as  in  Fullum' s  exceptional  case,  might 
grow  to  be  a  hundred  years  old,  or  nearly  that, 
without  changing  that  condition.  If  that  hap 
pened  his  presence  in  a  family  became  a  fac 
tor  of  importance  to  the  growing  children.  In 


64  A  NEW  ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

the  case  of  Fullura,  if,  as  he  supposed,  he  was 
born  in  1790,  he  was  thirty-two  years  old 
when,  in  1822,  he  took  me  in  his  arms  when  I 
was  an  hour  old. 

Fullum,  then,  had  been  a  country  lad,  who 
came  down  from  Worcester  County  to  make 
his  fortune.  I  do  not  know  when,  but  it  was 
before  the  time  of  the  short  war  with  England. 
He  expected  to  be,  and  was,  the  hired  boy  and 
hired  man  in  one  and  another  Boston  family. 
Early  in  the  business  he  was  in  Mr.  William 
Sullivan's  service.  He  was  driving  Mr.  Sulli 
van  out  of  town,  one  day,  when  they  found 
Koxbury  Street  blocked  up  by  the  roof  of  the 
old  meeting-house,  which  had  been  blown  into 
the  street  by  the  gale  of  September,  1815. 
Afterward  he  was  in  Daniel  Webster's  ser 
vice,  and  here  also  he  took  care  of  horses  and 
carriages.  He  was  a  born  tyrant,  and  it  was 
always  intimated  that  Mr.  Webster  did  not 
fancy  his  rule.  Anyway  he  came  from  the 
Websters  to  us,  I  suppose  when  Mr.  Webster 
went  to  Congress,  in  the  autumn  of  1820.  And, 
in  one  fashion  or  another,  he  lived  with  our 
family,  as  a  most  faithful  vassal  or  tyrant,  for 


LIFE   AT   HOME.  65 

sixty-six  years  from  that  time.  I  say  "  vassal 
or  tyrant,"  for  this  was  a  pure  piece  of  feudal 
ism  ;  and  in  the  feudal  system  the  vassal  is 
often  a  tyrant,  while  the  master  is  almost 
always  a  slave.  So  is  it  that  the  memories  of 
my  boyhood  are  all  mixed  up  with  memories 
of  Fullum. 

I  have  spoken  of  him  in  connection  with 
Miss  Whitney's  school.  Here  was  a  faithful 
man  Friday,  who  would  have  died  for  any  of 
us,  so  strong  was  his  love  for  us,  yet  who 
insisted  on  rendering  his  service  very  much 
in  his  own  way.  If  my  father  designed  a 
wooden  horse  for  me,  to  be  run  on  four 
wheels,  after  the  fashion  of  what  were  called 
velocipedes  in  those  days,  he  would  make  the 
drawings,  but  it  would  be  Fullum's  business 
to  take  them  to  the  carpenter's  and  see  the 
horse  made.  If  we  were  to  have  heavy  hoops 
from  water-casks,  Fullum  was  the  person  who 
conducted  the  negotiation  for  them.  There 
was  no  harm  in  the  tutorship  to  which  we 
were  thus  intrusted.  He  never  used  a  pro 
fane  or  impure  word  while  he  was  with  us 
children  ;  and  as  he  was  to  us  an  authority  in 


66  A   NEW  ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

all  matters  of  gardening,  of  carpentry,  of  driv 
ing  and  the  care  of  horses,  we  came  to  regard 
him  as,  in  certain  lines,  omniscient  and  omnip 
otent.  If  now  the  reader  will  bear  in  mind 
that  this  omniscient  and  omnipotent  person, 
at  once  the  Hercules  and  the  Apollo  of  our 
boyhood,  could  not  read,  write,  or  spell  so 
well  as  any  child  four  years  old  who  had  been 
twelve  months  at  Miss  Whitney's  school,  that 
reader  may  understand  why  a  certain  scorn  of 
book-learning  sometimes  stains  these  pages, 
otherwise  so  pure.  And  if  the  same  reader 
should  know  that  this  same  Fullnm  always 
spoke  in  superlatives,  and  multiplied  every 
figure  with  which  he  had  to  do  by  hundreds 
or  by  thousands,  he  may  have  a  key  to  a  cer 
tain  habit  of  exaggeration  which  has  been 
detected  in  the  present  writer.  "They  was 
ten  thousand  men  tryin'  to  git  in.  But  old 
Reed,  he  wouldn't  let  urn."  This  would  be 
his  way  of  describing  the  effort  of  four  or  five 
men  to  enter  some  place  from  which  Reed, 
the  one  constable  of  Boston,  meant  to  keep 
them  out. 
The  reader  must  excuse  this  excursus,  for  J 


LIFE   AT  HOME.  67 

think  it  necessary.  I  think  it  necessary  for 
the  civilized  child  to  be  kept  in  touch,  in  his 
childhood,  with  animals  and  with  savages. 
Fullum  was  the  person  through  whom  savage 
life  touched  ours.  To  Fullum,  largely,  we 
owed  it  that  we  were  neither  prigs  nor  dudes. 
We  had  no  cats,  nor  dogs,  nor  birds  ;  and 
Fullum' s  place  in  these  reminiscences  is  far 
more  important  than  is  that  of  any  pet,  any 
school-master,  or  any  minister. 

The  oldest  child  of  "us  four"  was  but 
four  years  and  nine  months  older  than  the 
youngest.  She  had,  as  I  have  said,  received, 
and  deserved,  at  Miss  Whitney's  a  medal 
given  to  the  "most  amiable."  Next  to  her 
came  a  boy,  then  another  girl,  and  then  this 
writer.  The  movements  of  "us  four"  had 
much  in  common  ;  but  at  school  and  in  most 
plays  the  boys  made  one  unit  and  the  girls 
another,  to  report  every  evening  to  one 
another.  It  is  to  the  boyhood  experiences 
that  these  pages  belong. 

But  it  was  a  Persian  and  Median  rule  of 
that  household,  which  I  recommend  to  all 
other  households,  that  after  tea  there  were  to 


68  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

be  no  noisy  games.  The  children  must  sit 
down  at  the  table — there  was  but  one — and 
occupy  themselves  there  till  bedtime.  It  has 
been  well  said  that  the  ferocity  of  infancy  is 
such  that,  were  its  strength  equal  to  its  will, 
it  would  long  ago  have  exterminated  the 
human  race.  This  is  true.  And  it  is  to  be 
remarked,  also,  that  the  strength  of  infancy, 
and  of  boyhood  and  girlhood,  is  very  great. 
Thus  is  it  that,  unless  some  strict  rules  are 
laid  down  for  limiting  its  use  and  the  places 
of  its  exhibition,  and  kept  after  they  are  laid 
down,  the  death  of  parents,  and  of  all  persons 
who  have  passed  the  age  of  childhood,  may 
be  expected  at  any  moment.  One  of  such 
rules  was  this  of  which  I  have  spoken. 

Everybody  of  whom  we  knew  anything 
dined  at  one  or  two  o'clock  in  Boston  then. 
After  dinner  men  went  back  to  their  places  of 
business.  At  six,  or  possibly  as  late  as  seven 
in  summer,  came  "tea."  After  tea,  as  I  have 
said,  the  children  of  this  household  gathered 
round  the  table.  Fullum  cnme  in  and  took 
away  the  tea  things,  folded  the  cloth  and  put 
it  away.  Our  mother  then  drew  up  her  chair 


LIFE  AT  HOME.  69 

to  the  drawer  of  the  table,  probably  with  a 
baby  in  her  arms  awaiting  the  return  of  its 
nurse.  We  four  drew  up  our  chairs  on  the 
other  sides.  Then  we  might  do  as  we  chose — 
teetotum  games,  cards  of  all  sorts,  books, 
drawing,  or  evening  lessons,  if  there  were  any 
such  awful  penalty  resulting  from  the  sin  of 
Adam  and  Eve.  But  nobody  might  disturb 
anyone  else. 

Drawing  was  the  most  popular  of  the  occu 
pations,  and  took  the  most  of  our  time  and 
thought.  The  provisions  for  it  were  very 
simple,  and  there  was  only  the  faintest  pre 
tence  at  instruction.  There  was  one  particu 
lar  brand  of  lead  pencils,  sold  by  one  particular 
grocer  in  West  Street  at  twelve  cents  a  dozen. 
These  were  bought  at  this  wholesale  rate,  and 
kept  in  the  drawer.  One  piece  of  India  rubber 
was  also  kept  there  for  the  crowd.  As  we 
gathered  at  the  table,  a  quarter-sheet  of  fools 
cap  was  given  to  each  child  and  to  each 
guest — as  regularly  as  a  bit  of  butter  had  been 
given  half  an  hour  before — and  one  pencil. 

The  reader  must  imagine  the  steady  flow 
of  voices.  "Who's  got  the  India  rubber?" 


70  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

"Here  it  is  under  the  Transcript."  "This 
horse  looks  as  if  he  were  walking  on  foot-balls." 
"Oh,  you  mustn't  draw  his  shoes  ;  you  never 
see  his  shoes!"  "I  wish  I  knew  how  to 
draw  a  chaise."  "  I  don't  see  how  they  make 
pictures  of  battles.  My  smoke  covers  up  all 
the  soldiers."  Battle  pieces,  indeed,  were,  as 
usual  with  children,  the  favorite  compositions. 
We  were  not  so  far  from  the  last  war  with 
England  as  the  children  of  to-day  are  from  the 
Civil  War. 

Perhaps  two  of  us  put  together  our  paper, 
folded  it  and  pinned  it  in  the  fold,  and  then 
made  a  magazine.  Of  magazines  there  were 
two — The  New  England'  Herald,  composed 
and  edited  by  the  two  elders  of  the  group,  and 
The  Public  Informer,  by  my  sister  Lucretia 
and  me.  I  am  afraid  that  the  name  "Public 
Informer"  was  suggested  wickedly  to  us  little 
ones,  when  we  did  not  know  that  those  words 
carry  a  disagreeable  meaning.  But  when  we 
learned  this,  afterwards,  we  did  not  care.  I 
think  some  of  the  Everetts,  my  uncles,  had 
had  a  boy  newspaper  with  the  same  name. 
When  things  ran  with  perfect  regularity  The 


LIFE   AT  HOME.  71 

New  England  Herald  was  read  at  the  break 
fast-table  one  Monday  morning,  and  TTiePublic 
Informer  the  next  Monday  morning.  But 
this  was  just  as  it  might  happen.  They  were 
published  when  the  editors  pleased,  as  all 
journals  should  be,  and  months  might  go  by 
without  a  number.  And  there  was  but  one 
copy  of  each  issue.  It  would  be  better  if  this 
could  be  said  of  some  other  journals. 

Once  a  year  prizes  were  offered  at  school 
for  translations  or  original  compositions.  We 
always  competed,  not  to  say  were  made  to 
compete,  by  the  unwritten  law  of  the  family. 
This  law  was  simply  that  we  could  certainly 
do  anything  if  we  wanted  to  and  tried.  I 
remember  a  long  rhythmical  version  I  made  of 
the  story  of  the  flood,  in  Ovid,  and  another  of 
Phaeton.  Where  Dry  den  makes  Jupiter  say, 
"Short  exhortations  need,"  I  remember  that 
my  halting  line  jumbled  along  into  the  ten 
syllables,  "Long  exhortations  are  not  needed 
here."  I  stinted  myself  in  this  translation 
to  four  lines  before  dinner  and  four  lines  after 
tea  ;  and  by  writing  eight  lines  thus,  in  fifty 
days  I  accomplished  the  enterprise.  I  would 


72  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

come  home  from  the  swimming  school  ten 
minutes  earlier  because  this  translation  was  to 
be  made  ;  and,  while  Fulhim  was  setting  the 
table  for  dinner,  I  would  stand  at  the  side 
board.  There  was  always  an  inkstand  on  it, 
with  two  or  three  quill  pens.  I  took  out  the 
poem  from  the  upper  drawer  of  the  sideboard, 
which  I  never  see  to  this  moment  without 
thinking  of  Ovid.  Then  I  wrote  my  four  lines, 
such  as  they  were,  put  the  manuscript  away 
again,  and  proceeded  to  dinner. 

Other  boys  and  other  girls  liked  to  come  in  to 
such  an  evening  congress  as  I  have  described, 
but  nothing  was  changed  in  the  least  because 
the  visitor  came,  excepting  that  room  was  made 
at  the  table.  He  or  she  had  a  quarter-sheet  of 
foolscap,  like  the  others. 

This  literature  is  connected  with  that  of  the 
world  by  one  reminiscence,  which  belongs  as 
late  as  some  of  the  very  last  of  these  evening 
sessions.  One  evening  my  father  came  in  from 
his  room,  which  was  next  to  that  we  sat  in,  with 
the  London  Morning  Chronicle.  He  pointed 
out  an  article  and  said  :  "  Read  that  to  them, 
Edward;  it  will  make  them  laugh."  And  I 


LIFE   AT  HOME.  73 

read  the  first  account  of  Sam  Welter  as  he 
revealed  himself  to  Mr.  Pickwick.  Of  course 
we  all  laughed,  as  thousands  have  done  since. 
But  I  said  sadly :  ' '  What  a  shame  that  we 
shall  never  hear  of  Sam  Weller  again  !  "  This 
must  have  been  in  the  college  vacation  of  the 
spring  of  1837. 

I  must  not  give  the  idea,  however,  by  speak 
ing  of  these  evenings  thus  that  our  lives 
were  specially  artistic  or  literary.  They  were 
devoted  to  play,  pure  and  simple,  with  no 
object  but  having  a  good  time.  The  principal 
part  of  the  attics — or,  as  we  called  them,  gar 
rets — in  every  house  we  lived  in  was  surren 
dered  to  us  boys.  In  Tremont  Place  we  had 
the  valuable  addition  of  a  dark  cockloft  over 
the  garret  chambers.  It  had  no  windows,  but 
was  all  the  better  place  to  sit  and  tell  stories 
in.  Then  we  controlled  the  stairs  to  the  roof, 
and  we  spent  a  good  deal  of  time,  in  the  sum 
mer  days,  on  the  ridge-pole.  There  were  not 
twenty  houses  in  Boston  on  higher  land,  so 
that  from  this  point  we  commanded  a  good 
view  of  the  harbor.  I  was  amused  the  other 
day  when  an  infantile  correspondent  of  a  New 


74  A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

York  newspaper  asked  how  Napoleon  could 
have  used  a  telegraph  before  what  is  called 
Mr.  Morse's  invention,  for  as  early  as  1831  we 
read  all  the  telegraphic  signals  of  all  the  vessels 
arriving  in  Boston  harbor,  and  the  occasional 
seinaphoric  signals  on  the  lookout  on  Central 
Wharf. 

About  the  year  1830,  under  the  pressure  of 
the  "  march  of  intellect,"  were  published  some 
books  for  young  children  from  which  the 
present  generation  is  profiting  largely.  There 
were  "The  Boy's  Own  Book,"  "The  Girl's 
Own  Book,"  "The  American  Girl's  Own 
Book,"  and  "The  Young  Lady's  Own  Book," 
each  of  them  excellent  in  its  way.  I  think 
"The  Boy's  Own  Book,"  which  has  since 
been  published  with  the  double  title  "An 
Encyclopaedia  for  Boys,"  led  the  way  in  this 
affair ;  and  I  still  regard  it  as  rather  the  best 
of  the  series.  It  had  subdivisions  for  indoor 
games,  outdoor  games,  gymnastics,  chemistry, 
chess,  riddles,  riding,  walking,  and  I  think 
driving,  boxing,  and  fencing.  Perhaps  there 
were  more  heads,  but  these  were  those  which 
occupied  our  attention  most.  Somebody  made 


LIFE   AT   HOME.  75 

me  a  New  Year's  present  of  this  book  in  the 
year  1830  or  1831,  and  from  that  moment  it  was 
the  text-book  of  the  attic.  Professor  Andrews 
and  President  Eliot  would  feel  their  hair  grow 
ing  gray,  if  for  five  minutes  they  were  obliged 
to  read  the  chemistry  which  soaked  into  us 
from  this  book.  Whoever  wrote  it  still  used 
the  old  nomenclature  a  good  deal.  We  knew 
nothing  of  HO,  and  little  of  the  proportions  in 
which  they  go  into  the  constitution  of  things. 
We  read  of  "  oil  of  vitriol"  and  "muriatic 
acid,"  and  had  other  autiquarian  names  for 
agents  and  reagents.  All  the  same,  the  book 
gave  us  experiments  which  we  could  try — 
taught  us  how  to  manufacture  fireworks  in  a 
fashion,  and  even  suggested  to  us  the  painting 
of  our  own  magic  lantern  slides.  Our  appa 
ratus  was  of  the  most  limited  kind.  It 
was  a  high  festival  day  when  one  went 
down  to  Gibbens'  grocer's  shop  and  bought 
for  three  cents  an  empty  Florence  flask ; 
this  was  the  retort  of  that  simple  chem 
istry.  In  connection  with  this,  like  all  other 
boys  of  that  time  known  to  me,  we  made  what 
were  called  electrical  machines,  which  gave  us' 


76  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

good  sparks  and  Leyden  jar  shocks  quite  suf 
ficient  to  satisfy  the  guests  who  visited  us. 

It  is  in  connection  with  one  of  these  machines 
that  I  remember  one  of  my  mother's  gospels. 
I  was  trying  to  catch  a  fly,  to  give  him  an  elec 
tric  shock,  and  she  would  not  permit  me.  I 
pleaded  in  vain  that  it  would  not  hurt  him,  but 
she  said:  "It  would  certainly  not  give  him 
pleasure,  and  it  might  give  him  pain." 

My  father  was  a  civil  engineer,  somewhat  in 
advance  of  his  time.  He  was  the  first  person 
to  propose  the  railroad  system  of  Massachu 
setts  ;  and  that  system  would  not  be  what  it  is, 
but  for  his  work  for  it,  in  season  and  out  of 
season.  I  cannot  remember  the  time  when  we 
did  not  have  a  model  railway  in  the  house  ;  in 
earlier  years  it  was  in  the  parlor,  so  that  he 
might  explain  to  visitors  what  was  meant  by  a 
car  running  upon  rails.  I  can  still  see  the 
.sad,  incredulous  look,  which  I  understood  then 
as  well  as  I  should  now,  with  which  some  intelli 
gent  person  listened  kindly,  and  only  in  manner 
implied  that  it  was  a  pity  that  so  intelli 
gent  a  man  as  he  should  go  crazy.  His  crazi- 
ness,  fortunately,  led  his  associates,  and  in  the 


LIFE  AT  HOME.  77 

year  1831,  after  endless  reverses,  a  charter  was 
given  for  the  incorporation  of  the  Boston  and 
Worcester  Railway.  In  the  earlier  proposals 
for  such  work  it  was  always  suggested  that 
horses  should  be  the  moving  power.  In  point 
of  fact  the  first  railway,  which  carried  the 
Qnincy  granite  from  Quincy  to  the  sea,  was 
operated  by  the  weight  of  the  descending 
trains,  which  pulled  up  the  empty  cars.  I  was 
with  him,  as  a  little  boy,  sitting  on  a  box  in 
the  chaise,  when  he  drove  out  once  to  see  the 
newly  laid  Quincy  track,  and  I  perfectly  re 
member  his  trying  with  his  foot  the  steadiness 
of  the  rail  where  it  crosses  the  road  to  Quincy. 
His  tastes,  of  course,  led  ours.  There  was  a 
lathe  in  the  house,  which  we  were  permitted  to 
run  under  severe  conditions  ;  and  we  very  early 
made  our  own  locomotives,  which  were  pro 
pelled  by  whalebone  springs. 

But  the  carriage  we  liked  most  was  the 
"float."  I  have  never  seen  it  in  the  plays  of 
other  boys,  though  perhaps  it  is  well  known. 
For  a  good  float  you  want  a  board  a  foot  wide, 
an  inch  thick,  and  four  feet  long.  You  want 
two  rollers,  which  had  better  be  of  hard  wood, 


78  A  NEW  ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

each  a  foot  long  and  an  inch  or  more  in  diame 
ter  ;  two  inches  would  be  better  than  one,  but 
you  take  what  you  can  get ;  a  broomstick 
furnishes  two  or  three  good  ones.  Placing 
these  rollers  two  feet  apart  on  the  ground,  you 
put  the  float  upon  them,  with  one  roller  at  the 
end,  and  the  other  in  the  middle.  You  then 
seat  yourself  carefully  on  the  board,  having 
two  paddles  in  your  hands,  made  from  shingles. 
With  these  two  paddles  you  will  find  that  you 
can  propel  yourself  over  any  floor  of  reason 
able  smoothness.  You  can  even  pass  a  thresh 
old,  and  you  can  run  into  the  most  unexpected 
corners.  If  you  have  a  companion  on  another 
float  in  the  same  room,  you  can  have  naval 
battles,  or  you  can  go  to  the  assistance  of  ship 
wrecked  crews.  You  can  go  forward  or  you 
can  go  backward,  every  now  and  then  running 
a  roller  out,  but  skilfully  placing  it  under  the 
float  at  such  an  angle  as  will  direct  you  in  the 
way  in  which  you  wish  to  go  afterwards.  For 
this  game  or  sport  you  should  not  have  too 
many  companions ;  you  should  have  a  good 
large  attic  or  barn  floor,  and  you  should  have 
unlimited  patience.  You  can  make  a  float,  of 


LIFE  AT  HOME.  79 

course,  out  of  a  museum  door,  or  out  of  any 
plank  that  happens  to  be  going.  I  remember 
once,  when  we  were  hard  pressed,  one  of  my 
companions  went  to  sea  in  a  soap  box.  But 
what  I  have  described  is  the  ideal  float  for 
young  people. 

We  played  all  the  tame  games,  such  as 
checkers,  chess,  loto,  battledoor  and  shuttle 
cock,  graces,  vingt-et-un,  cup  and  ball,  coro- 
nella,  and  the  like,  but  I  think  under  a  cer 
tain  protest.  For  that  matter,  I  danced  under 
the  same  protest.  I  regarded  all  these  as  con 
cessions  to  the  social  order  in  which  we  lived, 
and  I  obeyed  that  social  order  as  I  did  in 
going  to  school.  But,  precisely  as  I  looked 
upon  school  with  a  certain  sense  of  con 
descension,  I  think  we  all  looked  upon  these 
games  as  being  something  provided  for  an 
average  public,  while  we  supposed  that  all 
children  of  sense  invented  their  own  games. 

I  have  never,  by  the  way,  seen  in  print  the 
statement  that  our  teetotum  games  of  that 
day  were  a  survival  of  games  of  the  same  kind 
running  well  back  into  the  dark  ages.  In  the 
great  German  museum  at  Nuremberg  I  saw 


80  A  NEW  ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

such  games  of  as  early  a  date,  I  think,  as  the 
year  1300.  Any  boy  who  will  look  at  his  tee 
totum  game  of  to-day,  if  such  things  still 
exist,  will  probably  find  that  it  comes  out  at 
63.  This  means  that  63  is  the  "  grand  climac 
teric,"  in  the  old  theory  of  the  climacterics  ; 
and  then,  if  he  will  look  back,  he  will  find 
that  at  7,  14,  21,  28,  and  so  on  are  the  other 
climacterics.  All  this  belongs  to  those  happy 
ages  which  knew  nothing  of  modern  science. 
I  have  stated  already  the  absolute  rule  that 
we  must  report  at  home  before  we  went  any 
where  to  play  after  school.  I  think  this  rule 
affected  our  lives  a  great  deal  more  than  my 
mother  meant  it  should  in  laying  it  down. 
She  simply  wanted  to  know  at  certain  stages 
of  the  day  where  her  children  were.  I  do  not 
recollect  that  she  ever  forbade  our  going  any 
where,  where  we  wanted  to.  But  practically 
the  rule  worked  thus  :  We  rushed  home  from 
school,  very  likely  with  a  plan  on  foot  for  the 
Common,  or  for  some  combined  movement  with 
the  other  boys.  We  went  into  the  house  to  re 
port.  There  was  invariably  gingerbread  ready 
for  us,  which  was  made  in  immense  quantities 


LIFE  AT   HOME.  81 

for  the  purpose.  This  luncheon  was  ready  not 
only  for  us,  but  for  any  boys  we  might  bring 
with  us.  When  once  we  arrived  at  home  the 
home  attractions  asserted  themselves.  There 
was  some  chemical  experiment  to  be  continued, 
or  there  was  some  locomotive  to  be  displayed 
to  another  boy,  or  there  had  come  in  a  new 
number  of  the  Juvenile  Miscellany.  In  a 
word,  we  were  seduced  up  into  the  attic,  and 
up  in  the  attic  we  were  very  apt  to  stay.  I 
once  asked  my  mother  what  she  supposed  the 
mothers  of  the  other  boys  said  who  came 
home  with  us  and  partook  of  luncheon  and 
entered  into  our  affairs.  She  simply  said  that 
that  was  their  lookout,  it  was  not  hers.  She 
was  perfectly  ready  to  provide  luncheon  for  the 
crowd.  I  rather  think  that  the  other  mothers 
knew  that  the  boys  were  well  off. 

There  were  but  few  companions  who  were 
admitted  into  the  profoundest  mysteries  of  the 
attic.  Edward  Webster  was  one,  who  after 
ward  died  in  command  of  a  regiment  in  the 
Mexican  War.  Myc6usin  John  Durivage  was 
one,  and  there  were  others  whose  companion 
ship  was  not  as  long  or  as  steady  as  that  of  these 


82  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

two.  In  the  year  1829  my  brother  Nathan, 
who  was  my  adviser,  teacher,  companion,  and 
inspirer  in  everything,  being  three  years  older 
than  myself,  went  to  the  newly  established 
English  High  School  for  two  years.  Here  his 
smattering  of  science  and  taste  for  mechanics 
were  fostered,  and  from  such  a  laboratory  as 
was  there  he  brought  home  suggestions  for  our 
workshop.  I  have  always  known  that  I  am 
thus  largely  indebted,  at  second  hand,  to  the 
suggestions  which  he  received  from  Mr.  Miles 
and  Mr.  Sherwin  there.  And  this  is  not  a  bad 
instance  of  the  way  in  which  the  power  of  a 
great  educator  extends  itself  beyond  the  lives 
of  the  pupils  whom  he  has  under  his  eye  at 
school. 

My  father  was  editor  of  the  Daily  Adver 
tiser ;  and  in  that  day  this  meant  that  he 
owned  the  whole  printing  plant,  engaged  all 
the  printers,  and  printed  his  own  newspaper. 
He  was  never  a  practical  printer,  but,  with  his 
taste  for  mechanics,  he  understood  all  the  proc 
esses  of  the  business.  Not  unnaturally  this 
grew  into  his  establishing  a  book  office,  which 
did  as  good  work  in  its  time  as  was  done  any- 


LIFE   AT   HOME.  83 

where.  The  first  American  edition  of  Cicero's 
"  Republic,"  after  the  discovery  of  that  book  in 
a  Pompeian  manuscript  by  Mai,  was  printed 
by  him.  Naturally  he  went  forward  into  the 
study  of  power-press  printing,  and,  at  his  sug 
gestion,  Daniel  Treadwell  made  the  first  power 
presses  which  worked  to  advantage  in  this 
country.  In  the  years  between  1820  and  1825 
the  Boston  Mill-dam  was  constructed,  for  the 
purpose  of  making  a  water  power  out  of  the 
tide  power  of  the  Back  Bay.  My  father  then 
introduced  power-press  printing  there,  and 
that  printing-office  was  maintained  until  the 
year  1836.  When  the  time  came  he  was  presi 
dent  of  the  first  type  foundry  in  New  England, 
perhaps  in  America.  All  the  arrangements 
for  these  contrivances  were,  of  course,  interest 
ing  to  his  sons.  So,  as  I  have  said,  we  had 
type  from  the  printing-office,  and  we  all  learned 
to  set  type  and  to  arrange  it.  When,  in  1834, 
my  brother  went  to  college,  and  I  was  left 
alone,  I  used  to  repair  every  day  to  the  book 
office  for  my  printing,  and  there  learned  the 
case  and  all  the  processes  of  imposing  scientifi 
cally,  I  used  to  work  off  my  own  books  on  a 


84  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

hand  press.  I  have  never  lost  the  memories  of 
the  case,  and  am  rather  fond  of  saying  now 
that,  if  it  were  necessary,  I  could  support  my 
family  as  a  compositor. 

I  would  not  have  gone  into  this  detail  but 
that  I  am  always  urging  people  to  let  their 
boys  have  printing  apparatus  in  early  life, 
because  I  think  it  is  such  a  good  educator. 
The  absolute  accuracy  that  is  necessary  is  good 
for  a  boy.  The  solid  fact  that  144  ems  will  go 
into  a  certain  space,  and  will  require  that  space, 
and  that  no  prayers  nor  tears,  hopes  nor  fears, 
will  change  that  solid  fact — this  is  most  impor 
tant.  I  do  not  mean  the  mere  convenience  to 
an  author  of  being  able  to  talk  familiarly  with 
the  compositor  who  has  his  book  in  hand  :  that 
is  a  good  thing.  But  I  mean  that  human  life 
in  general  has  lessons  to  teach  which  every 
compositor  requires  which  few  other  experi 
ences  of  life  teach  so  well.  I  think  also  that, 
as  a  study  of  English  style,  the  school  of 
Franklin  and  Horace  Greeley  is  a  good  one. 

For  home  reading  we  had  the  better  maga 
zines  of  that  day,  including  the  English  New 
Monthly,  which  was  then  under  the  editorial 


LIFE  AT  HOME.  85 

charge  of  Campbell.  We  had  the  weekly  lit 
erary  newspapers  which  were  beginning,  such 
as  the  New  World,  edited  by  Park  Benjamin  ; 
the  Spirit  of  the  Times,  which  had  a  great  deal 
of  sporting  news  ;  the  Albion,  a  weekly  which 
was  made  up  of  extracts  from  good  foreign 
papers.  I  remember  the  issue  of  the  last  of 
Scott's  novels — "Anne  of  Geierstein,"  "Cas 
tle  Dangerous,"  and  "  Count  Robert  of  Paris." 
There  was  a  sort  of  grief  in  the  family,  as  if  a 
near  friend  had  died,  or  as  if  some  one  had 
gone  crazy,  when  "Castle  Dangerous"  and 
"Count  Robert"  appeared,  because  they  were 
so  poor.  The  last  part  of  " Harry  and  Lucy" 
was  published  within  our  day,  and  we  read  of 
those  children  almost  as  if  they  were  personal 
friends — a  good  deal  as  a  younger  generation 
has  read  of  Rollo  and  Jonas,  and  a  certain 
Susy  in  the  Susy  books.  Of  course  the  phys 
ical  science  in  "Harry  and  Lucy"  had  its 
part  in  our  philosophical  experiments.  Miss 
Edgeworth's  "Helen"  was  published  within 
my  memory,  and  we  had  friends  who  occasion 
ally  brought  in  letters  from  the  Edge  worths 
and  read  them. 


86  A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

We  were  all  instinct  with  the  love  of  nature 
and  of  the  country,  and  of  our  excursions 
outside  the  old  peninsula  of  Boston  I  will  say 
something  in  another  chapter.  But  we  could 
hardly  have  lived  without  some  sort  of  garden 
ing  at  home — certainly  not  under  my  mother's 
lead.  In  the  yard  at  the  corner  of  School 
Street  there  was  a  very,  very  little  space  where 
we  could  plant  seeds,  and  did.  But  when  we 
came  to  Tremont  Place  there  was  no  such 
space,  and  we  were  obliged  to  do  as  they  did 
at  Babylon.  We  each,  therefore,  had  on  the 
"shed,"  which  was  made  for  the  drying  of 
clothes,  a  raisin  box  filled  with  earth  for  our 
horticultural  experiments.  You  can  do  a  good 
deal  with  a  raisin  box,  if  you  are  careful  and 
not  too  ambitious.  Practically  I  planted 
morning-glories  along  one  long  side,  with  sweet 
peas  between.  These  were  to  climb  up  on  the 
posts.  There  is  a  tradition  in  the  family  that, 
when  I  was  a  boy  of  eight,  I  threw  over  a 
morning-glory  to  a  baby  six  or  eight  months 
old,  who  was  being  carried  by  in  the  street, 
whom  I  married  twenty-two  years  after.  I 
need  not  say  that  this  tradition,  well  founded 


LIFE  AT  HOME.  87 

as  a  matter  of  art,  has  no  foundation  in 
fact  excepting  that  "it  might  have  been." 
Behind  the  vines  divide  your  box  into  even 
parts.  The  right-hand  side  is  for  agriculture  : 
there  you  will  plant  your  radishes  and  pepper- 
grass.  The  left-hand  side  is  for  flowers :  here 
you  can  put  in  four  rows  ;  for  instance,  touch- 
me-nots,  flytrap,  Venus'  looking-glass,  and 
ten-week  stocks.  I  think  we  generally  selected 
our  seeds  from  something  which  seemed 
romantic  in  the  name  more  than  with  any 
reference  to  what  would  be  produced.  I  do 
not  mean  that  one  had  the  same  things  one 
summer  which  he  had  the  year  before. 

These  gardens,  covering  perhaps  a  square 
foot  and  a  half  each,  were  of  the  greatest 
interest  to  us.  I  remember  we  were  very 
much  amused  when  some  children  on  the 
other  side  of  the  way,  who  lived  in  one  of 
those  elegant  houses  where  the  Bellevue  now 
stands,  whose  terraces  ran  up  the  grades  of  the 
old  Beacon  Hill,  said  to  us  that  they  envied 
us  our  raisin  boxes  on  the  shed.  From  the 
same  shed  I  observed  the  annular  eclipse  of 
the  sun  in  the  spring  of  1829. 


x  CHAPTER  V. 

OUT   OF  DOOES. 

WE   were  close    by  the   Common.      The 
Common  was  still  recognized  as 

1.  A  pasture  for  cows. 

2.  A  play-ground  for  children. 

3.  A  place  for  beating  carpets. 

4.  A  training  ground  for  the  militia. 

It  had  served  these  purposes,  or  some  of 
them,  for  two  hundred  years,  since  Black- 
stone  had  first  turned  in  his  cows  among  its 
savins  and  blackberries  and  rocks  to  pick  up 
a  scanty  living.  In  modern  days  it  had  not 
been  fenced  until  1815.  After  the  war  with 
England  there  was  some  money  left  from  a 
popular  subscription  for  fortifying  the  harbor, 
which  the  Virginian  dynasties  had,  in  their 
way,  neglected.  This  money  was  used  for 
making  a  wooden  fence  around  the  Common. 
The  rails  of  this  fence  were  hexagonal — two  or 
three  inches  in  diameter,  perhaps.  If  a  flat 


OUT  OF  DOORS.  89 

side  were  on  top,  as  was  generally  the  case,  it 
made  a  good  seat  for  boys,  as  they  sat  on  the 
top  rail  with  their  feet  on  the  second.  If  the 
corner  came  uppermost  it  was  not  so  good. 
The  fence  was  double — inside  the  mall  and 
outside.  When  a  muster  took  place,  or  Artil 
lery  Election,  or  when  the  Sacs  and  Foxes 
danced  on  the  Common,  the  space  within  the 
inner  fence  was  cleared.  Then  boys  and  girls 
sat  on  it  to  witness  the  sports  within,  and 
those  taller  stood  in  rows  behind. 

There  cannot  be  a  square  yard  of  the  Com 
mon  on  which  I  have  not  stood  or  stepped, 
and  the  same  could  be  said  of  most  boys  of 
that  time.  As  for  the  cows,  we  saw  but  little 
of  them.  I  cannot  think  that  in  our  time 
there  were  ever  fifty  at  once  there.  They 
retired  to  the  parts  near  Charles  Street,  with 
which  we  had  less,  though  much,  to  do.  So 
did  the  people  who  beat  carpets.  Practically 
the  Common  was  ours  to  work  our  own  sweet 
will  upon.  On  musters,  and  on  the  two  elec 
tion  days  and  Independence  Day,  we  shared 
it  with  the  rest  of  the  town.  On  those  days 
"Old  Reed"  would  appear  with  his  con- 


90  A  NEW  ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

stable's  pole;  but  on  other  days  it  was  ours, 
and  ours  only. 

Even  Mrs.  Child,  in  her  Juvenile  Miscel 
lany,  gave  the  impression  that  the  coasting 
scene,  in  which  the  Latin  School  boys  defied 
General  Gage,  began  with  coasting  on  the 
Common.  But  she  was  wholly  wrong  there. 
In  1775  no  boy  went  out  of  town  to  coast 
on  the  Common.  And  the  famous  embassy 
which  the  Latin  School  boys  sent  to  General 
Haldimand,  to  complain  that  their  rights  were 
violated,  negotiated  about  a  coast  which  went 
down  Beacon  Street,  across  Tremont  Street, 
and  down  School  Street,  opposite  their  school. 
The  story  was  told  me  by  Mr.  Robins,  the  last 
survivor  of  the  delegation. 

Fifty -five  years  later  we  coasted  on  Beacon 
Street  when  we  dared.  But  this  was  in  face 
of  the  ordinances  of  the  young  city.  In  one  of 
Dr.  Jacob  Bigelow's  funny  poems,  printed  in 
the  Advertiser  in  1820,  he  made  himself  our 
spokesman  : 

Mr.  Heyward,  Mr.  Hey  ward,  be  a  little  kinder. 
Can't  you  wink  a  little  bit,  or  be  a  little  blinder? 
Can't  you  let  us  coasting  fellows  have  a  little  fun  ? 
Were   you  born  old,  or  was't   your  way  all  childish 
sports  to  shun  ? 


OUT  OF  DOORS.  91 

Did  you  ne'er  know  how  slick  it  is  to  coast  from  top  to 

bottom  ? 
And  can't  we  use  our  ironers  and  planers, now  we've  got 

'em? 
Five  dollars  makes  our  pas  look  cross — that's  proper  bad, 

you  know  ; 
Our  youth  will  soon  be  gone,  alas  !  and  sooner  still  the 

snow. 

Caleb  Heyward  was  the  police  officer  of  the 
day. 

Practically  we  went  to  the  Common  for 
coasting.  Tlie  smaller  boys  made  a  coast  on 
Park  Street  mall.  But  the  great  coast  was 
from  the  foot  of  Walnut  Street,  where  a  well- 
marked  path  runs  now,  leaving  the  great  elm 
on  the  right  as  you  went  down. 

This  may  be  my  last  chance  to  put  on  paper 
a  note  of  Lord  Percy's  encampment.  His 
brigade,  in  the  winter  of  1775-76,  and  perhaps 
of  the  previous  year,  was  encamped  in  tents,  in 
a  line  stretching  south-west  from  the  head  of 
West  Street.  As  the  weather  grew  cold  the 
tents  were  doubled,  and  the  space  between  the 
two  canvas  roofs  was  filled  with  straw.  The 
circles  made  by  such  tents  and  the  life  in  them 
showed  themselves  in  a  different  color  of  the 
grass  for  a  hundred  years  after  Percy's  time. 
The  line  is  now  almost  all  taken  up  by  what  I 


92  A   NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

may  call  the  highway  from  the  Providence 
station  down  town. 

As  the  snow  melted,  and  the  elms  blossomed, 
and  the  grass  came,  the  Common  opened  itself 
to  every  sort  of  game.  We  played  marbles  in 
holes  in  the  malls.  We  flew  kites  everywhere, 
not  troubled,  as  boys  would  be  now,  by  trees 
on  the  cross-paths,  for  there  were  no  such  trees. 
The  old  elm  and  a  large  willow  by  the  Frog 
Pond  were  the  only  trees  within  the  pentagon 
made  by  the  malls  and  the  burial-ground. 
Kite-flying  was,  as  it  is,  a  science  ;  and  on  a  fine 
summer  day,  with  south-west  winds,  a  line  of 
boys  would  be  camped  in  groups,  watching  or 
tending  their  favorite  kites  as  they  hung  in 
the  air  over  Park  Street.  Occasionally  a  string 
would  break.  It  was  a  matter  of  honor  to  save 
your  twine.  I  remember  following  my  falling 
kite,  with  no  clue  but  the  direction  in  which  I 
saw  it  last,  till  I  found  that  the  twine  was  lying 
across  a  narrow  court  which  opened  where  the 
Albion  Hotel  is  now.  There  were  two  rows  of 
three-story  houses  which  made  the  court,  and 
my  twine  festooned  it,  supported  by  the  ridge 
poles  of  the  roofs  on  either  side.  I  rang  a  door- 


OUT  OF  DOORS.  93 

bell,  stated  my  case,  and  ran  up,  almost  with 
out  permission,  into  the  attic.  Here  I  climbed 
out  of  the  attic  window,  ran  up  the  roof  as 
Teddy  the  Tyler  might  have  done,  and  drew  in 
the  coveted  twine.  For  the  pecuniary  value  of 
the  twine  we  cared  little  ;  but  it  would  have 
been,  in  a  fashion,  disgraceful  to  lose  it. 

Boats  on  the  Frog  Pond  were  much  what 
they  are  now.  The  bottom  of  the  pond  was  not 
paved  until  1848.  There  were  no  frogs,  so  far 
as  I  know,  but  some  small  horned  pout  were 
left  there,  for  which  boys  fished  occasionally. 
The  curb  around  the  pond  was  laid  in  Mr. 
Quincy's  day,  in  1823 ;  I  mean  when  he  was 
mayor.  To  provide  the  stone  the  last  of  the 
boulders  on  the  Common  were  blasted.  In  old 
days,  as  appears  from  Sewall,  they  were  plenty ; 
he  blasted  enough  for  the  foundations  of  a  barn. 
I  think  the  old  Hancock  House  was  built  from 
such  boulders.  Among  those  destroyed  was 
the  Wishing  Stone.  This  stood — or  so  Dr. 
Shurtleff  told  me — where  two  paths  now  join, 
a  little  east  of  the  foot  of  Walnut  Street.  If 
you  went  round  it  backward  nine  times,  and 
repeated  the  Lord's  Prayer  backward,  what- 


94  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

ever  you  wished  would  come  to  pass.  I  once 
proposed  to  the  mayor  and  aldermen  to  go 
round  the  Frog  Pond  nine  times  backward  and 
wish  that  the  city  debt  might  be  reduced  fifty 
per  cent.  But  they  have  never  had  the  faith 
to  try.  Mr.  Quincy  proposed  that  the  Frog 
Pond  should  be  called  Crescent  Lake.  But 
nobody  ever  really  called  it  so.  I  have  seen 
the  name  on  maps,  I  think,  but  it  is  now  for 
gotten. 

Charles  Street  was  new  in  those  days,  and  the 
handsome  elms  which  shade  the  Charles  Street 
mall  were  young  trees,  just  planted,  in  1825. 
By  the  building  of  the  mill-dam,  about  that 
time,  the  water  was  shutout  from  the  southern 
side  of  Charles  Street.  There  existed  a  super 
stition  among  the  boys  that  law  did  not 
extend  to  the  flat,  because  it  was  below  high- 
water  mark.  On  holidays,  therefore,  there 
would  be  shaking  of  props  and  other  games  of 
mild  gambling  there,  which  "Old  Reed"  did 
not  permit  on  the  upland.  This  was,  of  course, 
a  ridiculous  boyish  superstition.  In  those 
days,  however,  we  had  a  large  number  of  sea 
faring  men,  who  brought  with  them  foreign 


OUT  OF  BOOKS.  95 

customs.  Among  others  was  the  use  of 
"props,"  a  gambling  game  which  the  boys  had 
introduced  perfectly  innocently  as  an  element 
in  playing  marbles.  I  dare  say  people  played 
props  for  money  on  the  dried  surface  of  the 
Back  Bay. 

Of  all  the  entertainments  of  the  Common, 
however,  nothing,  to  our  mind,  compared  with 
the  facilities  which  the  malls  gave  for  driving 
hoop  and  for  post-offices.  The  connection  of 
the  two  may  not  be  understood  at  first,  and  I 
will  describe  it.  When  the  season  for  driving 
hoops  came  round — for,  as  Mr.  Howells  has 
remarked,  such  things  are  regulated  by  seasons 
as  much  as  is  the  coming  of  apple  blossoms — 
we  examined  last  year's  hoops,  and,  if  they 
had  come  to  grief,  Fullum  negotiated  some 
arrangements  by  which  we  had  large  hoops 
from  sea-going  casks.  I  see  none  such  now. 
These  hoops  were  as  distinguished  in  their  way 
as  Suiiol  is  to-day  in  hers.  My  hoop  was 
named  Whitefoot.  With  these  hoops  it  was 
our  business  to  carry  a  daily  mail. 

The  daily  mail  was  made  chiefly  from  small 
newspapers,  which  were  cut  from  the  leading 


96  A  NEW  ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

columns  of  larger  ones.  In  an  editor's  house 
we  had  plenty.  The  Quebec  Gazette  was  spe 
cially  chosen,  because  its  column  head  was  a 
small  copy  of  its  larger  head,  and  squares  cut 
from  that  column  made  very  good  little  papers. 
With  a  supply  of  these  folded,  we  started  at 
the  head  of  Park  Street,  two  or  three  of  us, 
secret  as  the  grave,  to  leave  the  day's  mail. 

No,  I  will  not,  after  sixty  years,  tell  where 
those  post-offices  were.  I  have  no  doubt  that 
the  ashes  of  the  Quebec  Gazette  are  now  fertil 
izing  some  of  those  elms.  But  one  was  near 
Joy  Street,  one  was  in  a  heart  which  some  land 
scape  gardener  had  cut  in  the  turf  near  Spruce 
Street,  one  was  half-way  along  Charles  Street. 
They  were  holes  in  the  ground,  or  caches  be 
tween  the  roots  of  trees.  At  each  was  a  box — 
or,  in  one  case,  two  tight-fitting  oyster  shells — 
which  received  the  mail.  From  it  the  yester 
day's  mail  was  taken  to  the  next  office. 

When  the  mail-riders  with  their  hoops 
arrived  at  one  of  these  post-offices  they  threw 
themselves  negligently  upon  the  ground,  as 
if  tired ;  but  one  dug  with  care  for  the  box 
buried  below.  Of  course  he  found  it,  unless 


OUT   OF  DOORS.  97 

some  fatal  landscape  gardener,  of  whom  the 
Common  knew  but  few,  had  interfered.  When 
found,  the  paper  or  letter  from  the  last  office 
was  left  here,  the  sods  or  stones  or  sand  were 
replaced,  and  the  cautious  mail-riders  galloped 
on.  At  the  end  of  a  winter  the  chances  were 
worse  for  finding  a  mail,  or  after  a  long  rain  or 
vacation. 

There  was  then  no  mall  on  Boylston  Street. 
The  burial-ground,  with  a  brick  wall,  ran 
close  to  the  street,  and  there  was  no  sidewalk 
on  that  side,  so  that  we  generally  crossed  by 
the  line  of  Percy's  encampments.  And  to  all 
boys,  I  imagine,  that  little  corner  where  the 
deer  park  is  was  comparatively  little  known. 

It  is,  however,  a  waste  of  honest  paper  to  be 
telling  of  such  trifles  about  the  Common,  when 
its  great  importance  was  as  a  training  field,  or 
for  holidays,  as  one  may  read  in  Sewall's 
Diary,  and  in  the  old  votes  of  the  town.  There 
were  four  holidays  in  the  year — 'Lection 
proper,  Artillery  Election  (generally  called 
'Tillery  'Lection),  the  Fourth  of  July  (called 
Independence  Day,  I  think,  more  than  it  is 
now),  and,  in  October,  Muster,  or  the  Fall 


98  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

Training.  By  good  luck,  of  course,  Lafayette 
might  come  along,  or  General  Jackson,  or  the 
Sacs  and  Foxes  might  dance,  but  these  could 
not  be  expected. 

Since  I  first  printed  these  notes,  a  dozen 
letters  have  informed  me  that  people  have  for 
gotten  who  the  Sacs  and  Foxes  were.  The 
Sacs  and  Foxes  were  an  important  branch  of 
the  great  Chippewa  race,  and  they  lived  in 
Northern  Illinois,  in  the  region  which  is  now 
called  Wisconsin,  and  farther  north.  Under 
the  lead  of  Black  Hawk,  a  famous  fighter,  and 
Keokuk,  they  made  head  against  the  settlers 
in  that  region,  and  their  power  was  only 
broken  by  a  military  campaign,  in  which  the 
United  States  Army  repressed  them.  It  was 
then  thought  that  it  would  be  a  good  thing 
for  the  Indians  of  the  frontier  to  show  them 
the  greatness  of  the  cities  of  the  East.  So 
Black  Hawk  and  Keokuk  and  some  other 
braves  were  brought  round  from  Washington 
to  the  Northern  cities,  and  they  appeared  in 
Boston  in  the  autumn  of  1838.  Governor 
Everett  received  them  at  the  State  House,  and 
they  made  speeches  to  him,  and  lie  made 


OUT  OF  BOOKS.  99 

speeches  to  them.  After  this  they  danced 
a  war  dance,  or  what  was  called  such,  on  the 
Common,  to  the  great  delight  of  all  the  people 
of  the  neighborhood. 

And  alas !  by  a  utilitarian  revolution,  in 
1831,  the  real  old  Election  Day  was  changed 
from  the  last  Wednesday  in  May  to  the  1st  "of 
January.  When  my  father  confessed  to  me 
that  he  had  himself  voted  for  the  change  in 
the  constitution  of  Massachusetts,  I  think  he 
did  it  with  a  certain  shame.  I  was  at  that 
time  nine  years  old,  so  that  I  could  not  rebuke 
him  as  the  vote  seemed  to  require.  But  he 
knew,  and  they  all  knew,  that  if  the  vote  had 
been  submitted  to  the  children  of  Boston,  no 
such  innovation  would  have  been  made. 

Unlearned  readers,  unhappily  not  born  in 
Massachusetts,  must  be  informed  that,  under 
the  first  charter  of  Massachusetts,  "yearly 
once  in  the  year  forever  after,  namely,  the  last 
Wednesday  in  Easter  term  yearly,  the  Gov 
ernor,  deputy  governor,  and  assistants  of  the 
said  company,  and  all  other  officers  shall  be  in 
the  General  Court  duly  chosen."  Under  the 
charter  of  the  province,  given  by  William  and 


100      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

Mary,  the  last  Wednesday  in  May  was  fixed 
for  the  beginning  of  the  political  year ;  and 
when  the  constitution  of  the  State  was  made, 
in  1779,  the  same  date  was  retained.  The 
General  Court  met — that  is  the  name  to  this 
day  of  the  legislature  of  Massachusetts  ;  in  the 
first  charter  it  meant  what  we  should  call 
a  stockholders'  meeting.  In  old  days  the 
General  Court  elected  the  Governor  on  this 
day  ;  so  Winthrop,  Dudley,  and  all  the  early 
governors  were  elected.  Under  the  constitu 
tion  the  election  returns  were  examined  on 
this  day,  and  perhaps  reported  on.  Anyway 
the  legislature  met,  referred  them  to  a  com 
mittee,  and,  under  escort  of  the  Cadets,  who 
were  the  Governor's  guard,  they  marched  to 
the  Old  South  Meeting  House  to  hear  the  elec 
tion  sermon. 

With  these  intricacies  of  government  I  need 
not  say  the  boys  of  Boston  had  nothing  to  do. 
What  was  truly  important  was  the  festivity, 
principally  on  the  Common,  of  Election  Day. 
Early  in  the  morning,  perhaps  even  Tuesday 
evening,  hucksters  of  every  kind  began  to  put 
up  their  tables,  tents,  and  stalls  on  each  side 


OUT   OF   DOORS.  101 

of  the  Tremont  Street  mall,  and,  to  a  less 
extent,  on  the  other  malls.  On  the  Common 
itself  a  mysterious  man — in  a  mysterious 
octagonal  house  painted  green  and  red,  as  I 
remember — displayed  camera  views  of  the 
scene.  Of  these  I  speak  from  hearsay,  for  I 
never  had  money  enough  to  pay  for  admission 
to  this  secret  chamber. 

I  found  in  Hawthorne's  "English  Note 
book"  some  curious  bits  of  information  about 
fairs  in  England,  which  reminded  me,  queerly, 
of  some  of  these  customs  of  our  New  England 
holidays  on  the  Common. 

To  prepare  for  these  festivities  every  child 
in  Boston  expected  '"Lection  money."  'Lec 
tion  money  was  money  given  specifically  to  be 
spent  on  the  Common  on  Election  Day.  The 
day  before  Election  my  mother  sent  Fullum 
to  the  office  for  three  or  four  dollars'  worth  of 
silver ;  and  she  knew  that  all  her  train  of  vas 
sals,  so  far  as  they  could  pretend  to  be  chil 
dren,  would  expect  "'Lection  money"  from 
her.  First,  she  had  her  own  children,  to 
whom  she  gave  twelve  and  a  half  cents  each. 
There  was  a  considerable  number  of  nephews 


102      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

and  nieces  who  might  or  might  not  look  in; 
but  if  they  did,  each  of  them  was  also  sure  to 
have  a  "ninepence,"  which  was  the  name 
given  to  the  Spanish  piece  which  was  half  a 
"quarter  dollar."  American  silver  coinage 
was  still  very  rare. 

It  may  be  of  use  to  young  orators,  getting 
ready  to  speak  on  the  silver  question,  to  know 
that  when,  in  1652,  the  colony  of  Massachu 
setts  Bay  assumed  the  royal  privilege  of  the 
mint  and  coined  its  own  silver,  the  leaders 
thought  they  could  keep  this  silver  at  home  by 
making  the  coin  two-thirds  the  weight  of  the 
king's  silver.  The  Massachusetts  shilling, 
therefore,  was  two-thirds  the  weight  of  the 
English  shilling.  Six  shillings  went  to  the 
Spanish  dollar.  It  proved  that  Spanish  coin 
became  very  largely  the  currency  of  the  colo 
nies,  and  so  of  the  States,  for  long  years  after 
independence.  We  took  the  Spanish  dollar 
for  our  unit  when  we  made  a  national  cur 
rency.  Twelve  and  a  half  cents  of  that 
currency,  the  old  Spanish  real  piece,  became 
worth  ninepence  in  the  Massachusetts  stand 
ard  ;  and  fourpence-halfpenny  and  ninepence, 


IK3- 


IF  I   HAPPENED  TO   MEET   AN   UNCLE,    HE   WOULD   ASK   ME   IF 
I  DID  NOT  WANT   SOME  ELECTION   MONEY." — Page  103. 


OUT  OF  DOOKS.  103 

the  half-real  and  real  of  the  early  time,  were 
the  coins  most  familiar  to  children.  The 
"piece  of  eight"  in  "Robinson  Crusoe"  is  a 
dollar  piece,  amounting  to  eight  of  our  nine- 
pences.  Old-fashioned  New  Englanders  will 
to  this  hour  speak  of  seventy-five  cents  as 
"four-and-sixpence,"  or  of  thirty-seven  and 
a  half  cents  as  "  two-and-threepence."  These 
measures  are  in  pine-tree  currency. 

To  come  back  to  Election  money.  Other 
retainers  expected  it.  There  were  families  of 
black  children,  who  never  appeared  at  any 
other  time,  who  would  come  in  with  smiling 
faces  and  make  a  little  call.  Mother  would 
give  each  one  his  or  her  ninepence.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  in  the  street  I  happened  to  meet 
an  uncle,  he  would  ask  me  if  I  did  not  want 
some  Election  money,  and  produce  his  nine- 
pence.  I  never  heard  of  "tipping"  in  any 
other  connection,  except  when  a  boy  held 
water  for  a  horse  as  you  rode  anywhere  ;  then 
you  always  gave  him  a  bit  of  silver  or  a  few 
cents, 

Thus  provided  with  the  sinews  of  war,  we 
went  up  on  the  Common  with  such  company 


104      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

as  might  have  happened  along — girls  with 
girls,  and  boys  with  boys.  The  buying  and 
selling  were  confined  almost  wholly  to  things 
to  eat  and  drink  ;  though  there  is  a  bad  story 
told  of  me,  that,  having  gone  out  with  a 
quarter  of  a  dollar  one  morning,  I  spent  the 
whole  of  it  for  a  leather  purse,  into  which, 
for  the  rest  of  the  day,  I  had  nothing  to 
put.  This  is  my  experience  of  Ben  Franklin's 
whistle.  Certain  things  were  sold  there  which 
we  never  saw  sold  anywhere  else,  and  which 
we  should  never  have  thought  of  buying  any 
where  else.  Boston  was  then  in  active  trade 
with  the  West  Indies,  more  than  it  is  now. 
You  could  not  bring  bananas  in  the  long 
schooner  voyages  of  that  time,  but  we  had 
cocoanuts  in  plenty,  and  occasionally  a  bit  of 
sugarcane.  I  do  not  think  I  had  ever  seen  a 
banana  when  I  was  twenty  years  old. 

It  happened  oddly  enough  that  tamarinds, 
in  the  curious  "original  packages,"  were 
always  for  sale,  and  dates,  of  which  we  did 
not  see  much  on  other  occasions.  At  home  we 
never  had  oysters,  I  believe  because  my  father 
did  not  like  them  ;  but  on  the  Common  we  could 


OUT   OF   BOOKS.  105 

buy  two  oysters  for  a  cent,  and  we  ate  them 
with  rapture.  To  this  day  I  doubt  if  a  raw 
oyster  is  ever  as  good,  as  it  was  when  eaten 
under  the  trees  of  Park  Street  mall,  with  vine 
gar  and  pepper  and  salt  ad  libitum,  and  this 
in  May  !  Candy  of  all  kinds  then  known  was 
for  sale,  but  the  kinds  were  limited.  There 
was  one  manufactured  form  which,  I  am  sorry 
to  say,  has  died  out.  One  or  two  dealers  sold 
large  medals  of  checkerberry  stamped  with  a 
head.  Whom  this  originally  represented  I  do 
not  know,  but  very  early  we  all  said  it  was 
John  Endicott,  because  he  was  the  first  Gov 
ernor  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  and  we  called 
them  "John  Endicotts."  I  advertised  in  a 
newspaper,  a  few  years  ago,  for  anybody  who 
knew  how  to  make  these  things,  but  I  had  no 
answer.  You  would  see  sailor-looking  men  eat 
ing  lobsters,  but  those  we  were  quite  sure  of  at 
home.  Ginger  beer  and  spruce  beer  were  sold 
from  funny  little  wheelbarrows,  which  had 
attractive  pictures  of  the  bottles  throwing  out 
the  corks  by  their  own  improvised  action. 
You  might  have  a  glass  of  spruce  beer  for  two 
cents,  and,  to  boys  as  impecunious  as  most  of 


106      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

us  were,  the  dealers  would  sell  half  a  glass  for 
one  cent.  Why  we  did  not  all  die  of  the 
trash  which  we  ate  and  drank  on  such  occa 
sions  I  do  not  know.  But  we  are  alive,  a 
good  many  of  us,  to  tell  the  story  to  this  hour. 
In  all  this  we  had  little  thought  or  care  for 
the  election  itself.  Independence  Day  passed 
in  much  the  same  fashion.  I  remember,  as 
I  returned  home  from  the  Common,  having 
expended  every  cent  of  my  money,  one  Inde 
pendence  Day,  I  saw  a  procession  of  children 
going  into  Park  Street  Church.  To  see  a 
church  open  on  a  week-day  was  itself  extraor 
dinary.  To  see  children  going  in  procession 
into  a  church  was  more  extraordinary.  With 
a  disposition  to  find  out  what  was  going  on  I 
followed  in  the  train,  and  went  into  the  gallery. 
We  were  not  orthodox  at  our  house,  but  I  had 
been  in  that  meeting-house  before.  I  soon 
perceived  that  this  was  a  Sunday-school  enter 
tainment,  at  which  I  remained  as  long  as 
seemed  pleasing  to  me,  and  then  retired.  I 
have  no  recollection  of  anything  that  passed 
there,  but,  by  putting  the  dates  together,  I  am 
fond  of  believing  that  then  and  there  I  heard 


OUT  OF  DOORS.  107 

Dr.  Smith's  national  song,  "My  Country,  'tis 
of  Thee,"  sung  for  the  first  time  that  it  was 
ever  sung  in  public.  Possibly  my  untrained 
voice  joined  in  the  enthusiasm  of  the  strain. 

It  was  at  one  of  the  first  of  the  elections 
after  the  anniversary  had  been  changed  to 
January  that  an  event  took  place  which  made 
quite  a  mark  in  the  local  history,  and  to  which 
boys  attached  immense  importance.  Governor 
Lincoln  had  been  escorted  to  the  Old  South 
Meeting- House  by  the  Cadets,  whose  force  was 
not  large  at  that  time.  The  escort  had  opened 
to  the  right  and  the  left  for  the  civic  proces 
sion  to  pass  in,  and  then,  instead  of  following 
them,  had  repaired  to  the  Exchange  Coffee- 
House  for  refreshment.  The  commander  had 
left  a  messenger,  who  was  to  inform  him  when 
the  sermon  approached  its  close,  so  that  he 
might  be  ready  with  the  escort  at  the  door  of 
the  church  to  go  back  with  the  Governor  to 
the  State  House.  Unfortunately  the  preacher 
wound  up  too  suddenly,  the  hymn  which  fol 
lowed  the  sermon  was  too  short,  and  when  the 
Governor,  who  was  the  prince  of  punctilio  in 
such  matters,  came,  with  the  council  and  the 


108  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

legislature,  to  the  door,  there  was  no  escort. 
Governor  Lincoln  walked  up  Winter  Street 
with  the  gentlemen  of  his  personal  staff,  but 
without  any  Cadets.  The  colonel  of  the 
Cadets  arrived  at  the  church  a  minute  too 
late.  He  put  his  men  at  double  quick,  and 
they  fairly  ran  up  Bromfield  Street,  and  came 
to  the  corner  of  the  Common  in  time  to  meet 
the  Governor,  and  presented  arms.  But  the 
Governor  declined  to  recognize  his  escort,  and 
proceeded  on  the  sidewalk  to  the  State  House 
or  his  lodging-house,  with  the  melancholy 
Cadets  following  as  they  might.  A  court- 
martial  ensued,  of  which  the  proceedings  are 
in  print ;  and  military  circles  and  the  circles 
of  school-boys  were  highly  excited  about  it. 
It  was  one  of  the  fortunate  events  of  my  early 
life  that  I  stumbled  on  the  Governor  and  his 
staff  as  they  walked  up  Winter  Street  on  that 
fatal  occasion. 

On  the  evening  of  Independence  Day  there 
was  sometimes  a  display  of  fireworks  on  the 
Common  ;  but  the  science  of  pyrotechnics  was 
then  but  little  advanced  in  America,  and  there 
was  much  more  waiting  than  there  was  exhibi- 


OUT  OP  DOORS.  109 

tion.  My  recollections  of  these  displays  are 
of  our  always*  leaving  to  go  home,  tired  out, 
before  the  successful  pieces  were  shown.  To 
the  boys  and  girls  of  to-day  it  will  be  interest 
ing  to  know  that  the  pieces  were  set  up  either 
for  spectators  who  stood  on  the  hill  and  looked 
down  toward  St.  Paul's  Church,  or  near  the 
foot  of  Walnut  Street  for  groups  of  spectators 
below,  who  were  to  look  up  to  them  there. 
The  entire  absence  of  trees  from  the  Common 
inside  the  malls,  enabled  those  in  charge  to 
make  the  stages  for  the  fireworks  just  where 
they  pleased. 

The  military  system  of  the  State  in  those 
days  required  two  annual  parades,  in  which 
every  militiaman  should  appear  with  his  gun 
and  other  equipments.  It  is  by  a  compara 
tively  modern  arrangement  that  the  State  or 
the  United  States  furnishes  the  arms  for  the 
militia.  Under  the  simpler  arrangements  of 
the  colony,  and  of  the  State  at  the  beginning, 
every  man  who  considered  himself  a  man  was 
obliged  to  have  a  gun,  a  cartridge-box,  a  belt, 
a  "primer,"  .and  the  other  necessaries  for  an 
infantry  soldier.  We  therefore  had,  in  the 


110  A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

attic,  Fullum'sgun,  cartridge-box,  and  primer, 
which  made  good  properties,  in  any  theatricals 
which  required  the  presence  of  an  army.  My 
father  had  been  a  member  of  the  New  England 
Guards,  bat  his  gun  was  kept  in  their  armory. 

These  arms  the  militiaman  bought  with  his 
own  money,  and  he  must  produce  them  once  a 
year  for  inspection.  I  believe  that  they  were 
shown  at  a  certain  spring  meeting,  to  which 
comparatively  little  attention  was  given  by 
boys.  But  in  the  autumn,  every  man  between 
the  ages  of  eighteen  and  forty-five,  unless  he 
were  on  the  list  of  "exempts,"  had  to  appear 
in  person,  with  his  gun,  belt,  and  cartridge- 
box,  to  show  that  the  commonwealth  had  him 
as  a  soldier,  and  that  he  knew  something  of 
the  art  of  arms. 

Young  men  who  had  a  real  interest  in  the 
military  art  did  as  they  do  now.  They  volun 
teered  into  what  were  called  the  "volunteer 
companies,"  or  sometimes  the  "flank  com 
panies."  These  companies  had  uniforms,  had 
generally  their  own  separate  charters  as  f usi- 
leers,  rangers,  light  infantry,  or  guards  ;  they 
were  proud  of  their  history ;  the  State  or 


OUT  OF  BOOKS.  Ill 

somebody  provided  them  with  armories — gen 
erally  over  Faneuil  Hall — and  they  had  fre 
quent  parades,  while  they  had  sufficient 
instruction  for  keeping  up  their  military  dis 
cipline.  All  this  was  precisely  as  uniformed 
militia  companies  exist  to-day.  But  now  the 
other  militiamen  are  simply  on  a  certain  regis 
ter,  which  they  never  see  and  of  which  they 
know  nothing — though  they  are  counted  to 
the  credit  of  Massachusetts  in  the  quota  which 
exists  at  Washington.  Then,  the  militiaman 
had  to  appear  and  show  himself ;  and  this  he 
did  at  the  annual  training.  A  man  knew  to 
what  company  he  belonged.  He  was  notified 
that  he  must  attend  at  a  certain  place  on  the 
morning  of  the  Fall  Muster ;  he  did  attend 
there,  and  thence  he  marched  to  the  Common 
for  the  fall  training. 

The  military  zeal  of  the  War  of  1812  had  not 
wholly  died  out,  but  there  was  beginning  to 
be  a  suspicion  that  the  conditions  of  peace 
were  such  that  it  was  not  necessary  for  every 
man  to  be  trained  to  arms.  A  certain  ridicule, 
therefore,  attached  itself  to  what  was  called 
the  "militia"  in  distinction  from  the  "vol- 


112      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

unteer  companies."  Occasionally  a  militia 
company,  under  spirited  lead,  tried  to  distin 
guish  itself  by  its  drill,  but  this  seldom  hap 
pened.  Old  Boston  people  will  remember  a 
joke  of  that  time  about  the  Berry  Street 
Rangers.  The  particular  company,  which  met 
in  front  of  Dr.  Channing's  church  in  Berry 
Street,  chose  one  year  as  their  captain  a  gen 
tleman  who,  they  thought,  would  let  them  off 
lightly.  But  he  interested  himself  at  once  in 
bringing  up  the  company's  equipment  and 
drill,  and -gave  them  the  name  of  the  Berry 
Street  Rangers,  so  that  for  some  years  we 
heard  of  their  exploits  in  one  way  or  another. 
The  interest  among  young  men  which  now 
goes  largely  to  the  keeping  up  of  military  com 
panies  was  then  expended  in  great  measure 
on  the  volunteer  fire  department.  Still,  when 
the  fall  training  came,  the  interest  of  the  boys 
was  naturally  in  the  companies  which  were  in 
uniform  ;  and  when  the  parade  was  formed  on 
the  Common  these  companies  always  held  the 
right  of  the  line,  either  by  courtesy  or  because 
they  were  entitled  to  it  by  law.  According  as 
the  major-general  commanding  had  more  or 


OUT   OF  DOORS.  113 

less  enthusiasm  there  would  or  would  not  be 
a  sham  fight.  The  whole  Common  was  cleared 
for  these  exercises.  Of  course  a  considerable 
detail  of  melancholy  sentinels  was  required  to 
keep  the  boys  from  running  in,  and  the  princi 
pal  fights,  sham  or  real,  on  these  occasions, 
were  their  contests  with  these  sentinels.  But 
as  the  army  to  be  reviewed  really  amounted  to 
one-fifth  of  the  men  of  Boston,  even  after  this 
large  detail  of  sentries,  there  would  be  a  con 
siderable  force  in  the  field.  It  seems  to  me 
that  the  line  always  extended,  with  its  back  to 
the  Tremont  Street  mall,  for  the  whole  length 
of  that  mall.  The  reviewing  officers  would  pass 
it,  as  in  any  review  to-day,  and  then  the  sham 
fight  would  begin.  We  boys,  sitting  on  the 
fence,  criticised  the  manoeuvres  of  this  Water 
loo,  with  such  information  on  tactics  as  we 
had  got  from  reading  Botta's  "  History  of  the 
American  Re  volution  "  or  Caesar's  "Commen 
taries  on  the  War  with  Gaul."  I  recollect  a 
sham  fight  in  which  the  hill— still  fortified,  as  I 
have  said — was  defended  against  an  attack.  It 
appears  to  me,  however,  that  the  attacks  were 
generally  made  by  the  whole  force  against  an 


114      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

unseen  enemy.  This  mode  of  fighting  has  its 
advantages.  Practically,  however,  after  the 
Eangers  had  been  thrown  out  as  skirmishers, 
and  the  different  companies  had  moved  back 
ward  and  forward  across  the  Common,  at  about 
five  in  the  afternoon  the  whole  line  was  formed 
again,  and  a  discharge  of  blank  cartridges 
began,  which  lasted  till  all  the  cartridges  of  all 
the  soldiers  were  burned  up.  I  say  all  the 
cartridges,  but  we  would  solicit  Fullum  to  slip 
one  or  more  cartridges  into  his  pocket  instead 
of  firing  them  off,  and  on  rare  occasions  he 
succeeded  in  doing  this.  Then  there  were 
superstitions  that  individual  soldiers  were 
afraid  to  burn  their  cartridges,  and  dropped 
them  surreptitiously  on  the  grass,  so  that,  the 
next  morning,  we  always  went  over  to  the 
Common  to  see  if  we  could  not  find  some  of 
these.  I  cannot  recollect  that  any  boy  ever 
did.  The  actual  presence  of  war,  as  it  showed 
itself  in  this  discharge  of  powder,  was  of 
course  very  attractive,  and  "Muster"  had 
a  certain  value  which  belonged  to  none  of  the 
other  holidays  of  the  year. 
There  was  great  antipathy  in  the  ruling  cir- 


OUT   OF   DOORS.  115 

cles  at  our  house  to  boating,  in  any  of  the 
forms  then  pursued  in  the  harbor.  On  the 
other  hand,  my  father  and  mother  were  both 
country  bred,  and,  as  I  believe  I  have  said, 
my  mother  was  very  fond  of  flowers.  As 
soon  as  spring  opened,  in  the  earlier  days, 
father  and  mother  went  to  drive  very  often 
on  Thursday  and  Saturday  afternoons.  This 
drive  was  taken  in  the  chaise,  and,  for  the  pur 
pose  of  the  ride,  a  little  seat  was  fitted  in, 
which  was  in  fact  a  trunk,  in  which  mother 
brought  home  any  wild  flowers  which  she 
picked.  On  this  trunk  one  of  "us  four" 
went,  in  a  regular  order  laid  down  by  the 
Medes  and  Persians.  This  entertainment  of 
a  holiday  was  one  of  the  great  joys  of  my 
early  life.  But,  for  the  half-holidays  which 
were  not  thus  provided  for,  my  brother  and 
I  took  care  by  using  "  the  means  which  God 
and  nature  put  into  our  hands."  That  is  to 
say,  we  walked  out  of  town  to  such  woodland 
generally  as  we  had  not  explored  before,  until 
we  were  personally  acquainted  with  the  whole 
country  for  a  circle  of  five  miles'  radius  around 
the  State  House. 


116      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

An  enterprising  English  surveyor  named 
John  G.  Hales  had  lived  in  Boston  long  enough 
to  make  a  good  working  map  of  the  suburbs 
of  Boston.  He  printed  a  little  book,  still 
known  to  the  curious,  on  that  region.  He 
was  rather  in  advance  of  the  times,  I  suppose, 
and  when  he  succumbed  to  adversity,  my 
father  bought  from  him  all  the  plates  and 
drawings  of  his  different  maps.  Among  these 
was  the  map  of  Boston  and  vicinity,  which 
is  still  a  good  map,  and  is  still  regularly 
stolen  from  by  anybody  who  wants  to  pub 
lish  such  a  map,  without  much  regard  to 
any  copyright  which  existed  in  the  original 
surveys.  Two  or  three  times  new  editions  of 
this  map  were  published,  and  in  such  a  case 
"we  four"  generally  had  more  or  less  to  do 
with  the  painting  of  the  different  towns,  so 
that  their  lines  might  be  the  better  designated. 
It  thus  happens  that  at  this  moment  I  could 
pass,  with  some  credit,  any  competitive  exam 
ination  which  should  turn  on  the  township 
lines  of  the  various  towns  within  fifteen  miles 
of  Boston. 

But    the    personal    knowledge,  gained    by 


OUT  OF  DOORS.  117 

tramping  through  the  interior  circle  of  such 
towns,  was  worth  much  more  than  the  paint 
ing.  The  Hales  map  indicated  the  several 
pieces  of  scrub  woodland  which  were  then 
left,  and  to  such  woodland  we  boys  regularly 
repaired.  I  need  not  say  that  such  expe 
ditions  were  encouraged  at  home.  Whenever 
we  chose  to  undertake  one  two  cents  were 
added  to  our  allowance  for  the  purchase  of 
luncheon. 

We  always  kept  for  such  expeditions  what 
were  known  as  phosphorus-boxes,  which  were 
the  first  steps  in  the  progress  that  has  put  the 
tinder-boxes  of  that  day  entirely  out  of  sight. 
Most  of  the  young  people  of  the  present  day 
have  not  so  much  as  seen  a  tinder-box,  and  I 
do  not  know  where  I  should  go  to  buy  one. 
But,  in  the  working  of  the  household,  the 
tinder-box  was  the  one  resource  for  getting  a 
light.  We  boys,  however,  with  the  lavishness 
of  boys,  used  to  buy  at  the  apothecary's  phos 
phorus-boxes,  which  were  then  coming  in.  We 
had  to  pay  twenty-five  cents  for  one  such  box. 
These  boxes  were  made  in  Germany ;  they 
were  of  red  paper,  little  cylinders  about  four 


118      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

inches  high  and  an  inch  in  diameter.  You 
could  carry  one,  and  were  meant  to  carry  it, 
in  your  breast  pocket.  In  the  bottom  was  a 
little  bottle  which  contained  asbestos  soaked 
with  sulphuric  acid,  and  in  the  top  were  about 
a  hundred  matches,  made,  I  think,  from  chlo 
rate  of  potash.  One  of  these  you  put  into  the 
bottle,  and  pulled  it  out  aflame.  We  never 
should  have  thought  of  taking  one  of  these 
walks  without  a  phosphorus-box.  When  we 
arrived  at  the  woodland  sought  we  invariably 
made  a  little  fire.  We  never  cooked  anything 
that  I  remember,  but  this  love  of  fire  is  one  of 
the  earlier  barbarisms  of  the  human  race  which 
dies  out  latest.  I  suppose  if  it  had  been  the 
middle  of  the  hottest  day  in  August  we  should 
have  made  a  fire. 

So  soon  as  the  morning  session  of  school  was 
over,  in  the  summer  or  autumn  months,  if  it 
were  a  half -holiday,  we  would  start  on  one  of 
these  rambles.  Sometimes,  if  the  walk  were 
not  to  a  great  distance,  we  invited,  or  per 
mitted,  the  two  girls  to  come  with  us.  We 
had  a  tin  box  for  plants,  and  always  brought 
home  what  seemed  new  or  pretty.  On  rare 


OUT   OF  DOORS.  119 

occasions,  when  we  had  made  up  a  larger 
party,  we  took  the  "truck"  with  us,  that  we 
might  treat  any  weaker  member  of  the  party 
to  a  ride.  The  truck  was  quite  a  fashionable 
plaything  at  that  time  ;  I  do  not  see  it  much 
now,  excepting  in  the  hands  of  boys  who  have 
to  use  it  for  freight.  But  in  those  days  boys 
rode  on  trucks  a  good  deal.  A  truck  was  a 
pair  of  wooden  wheels  on  a  stout  axle — gen 
erally  not  stout  enough — with  two  thills,  in 
which  the  boy  harnessed  himself  by  the  simple 
process  of  taking  hold  of  them  with  his  hands. 
If  he  chose  to  be  jaunty  he  had  twine  reins 
passed  under  his  arms,  that  the  person  who 
sat  on  the  seat  of  the  truck  might  pretend  to 
be  driving. 

When,  in  1833,  the  Worcester  Railroad  was 
opened,  this  walking  gave  way,  for  a  family 
as  largely  interested  in  that  railroad  as  we 
were,  to  excursions  out  of  town  to  the  point 
where  the  walk  was  to  begin.  The  line  to 
West  Newton  was  opened  to  the  public  on  the 
7th  of  April,  1833,  but  from  the  day  when  the 
Meteor,  which  was  the  first  locomotive  engine 
in  New  England,  ran  on  her  trial  trip,  we  two 


120  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

boys  were  generally  present  at  the  railroad,  on 
every  half-holiday,  to  take  our  chances  for  a 
ride  out  upon  one  of  the  experimental  trips. 
We  knew  the  engine-drivers  and  the  men  who 
were  not  yet  called  conductors,  and  they  knew 
us.  My  father  was  the  president  of  the  road, and 
we  thought  we  did  pretty  much  as  we  chose. 
The  engine-drivers  would  let  us  ride  with  them 
on  the  engine,  and  I,  for  one,  got  my  first  les 
sons  in  the  business  of  driving  an  engine  on 
those  excursions.  But  so  soon  as  the  road 
was  open  to  passengers,  these  rides  on  the 
engine  dropped  off,  perhaps  were  prohibited. 
Still  we  went  to  Newton  as  often  as  we  could 
in  the  train,  and  afterwards  to  Needham. 
There  were  varied  cars  in  those  days,  some  of 
them  open,  like  our  open  horse-cars  of  to-day, 
and  all  of  -them  entered  from  the  side,  as  in 
England  up  to  the  present  time.  After  this 
date  our  long  walks  out  of  town  naturally 
ceased.  Nothing  was  more  common  in  our 
household  than  for  the  whole  family  to  go  out 
to  Brighton  or  to  Newton,  and,  with  babies 
and  all,  to  establish  ourselves  in  some  grove, 
where  we  spent  the  afternoon  very  much  as 


OUT  OF  DOORS.  121 

God  meant  we  should  spend  it,  I  suppose  ; 
returning  late  in  the  evening  with  such  spoils 
of  wild  flowers  as  the  season  permitted. 

More  methodical  excursions  out  of  town 
took  forms  quite  different  from  what  they 
would  take  to-day.  At  our  house  the  custom 
was  to  deride  canals  in  proportion  as  we  glori 
fied  railroads.  All  the  same,  I  think  in  the 
summer  of  1826 — still  recollected  as  the  hottest 
summer  which  has  been  known  in  this  century 
in  New  England — it  was  announced  one  day 
that  we  were  going  to  Chelmsford,  and  that  we 
were  going  by  the  canal.  I  have  no  recollec 
tion  of  the  method  by  which  we  struck  the 
Middlesex  Canal ;  I  suppose  that  we  had  to 
drive  to  East  Cambridge  and  take  the  General 
Sullivan  there.  The  General  Sullivan  was 
what  was  known,  I  think,  as  a  packet-boat, 
which  carried  passengers  daily  from  Boston  to 
the  Merrimac  River,  where  the  name  "Lowell" 
had  just  then  been  given  to  a  part  of  the  town 
ship  of  Chelmsford.  Mr.  Samuel  Batchelder, 
the  distinguished  engineer  and  manufacturer, 
to  whom  New  England  owes  so  much,  was  one 
of  my  father's  most  intimate  friends.  He  was 


122      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

engaged  in  some  of  the  first  works  at  Lowell, 
and,  by  way  of  escape  from  the  heat,  father 
had  arranged  that  the  whole  family  should  go 
down  to  the  tavern  at  Chelmsford  and  spend 
a  few  days. 

The  present  generation  does  not  know  it, 
but  travelling  on  a  canal  is  one  of  the  most 
charming  ways  of  travelling.  We  are  all  so 
crazy  to  go  fifty  miles  an  hour  that  we  feel  as 
if  we  had  lost  something  when  we  only  go  five 
miles  an  hour.  All  the  same,  to  sit  on  the 
deck  of  a  boat  and  see  the  country  slide  by 
you,  without  the  slightest  jar,  without  a  cin 
der  or  a  speck  of  dust,  is  one  of  the  exquisite 
luxuries.  The  difficulty  about  speed  is  much 
reduced  if  you  will  remember,  with  Red 
Jacket,  that  "  you  have  all  the  time  there  is." 
And  I  have  found  it  not  impossible  to  imag 
ine  that  the  distance  over  which  I  am  going  is 
ten  times  as  great  as  in  fact  the  statistical 
book  would  make  it.  Simply  I  think  a  man 
may  get  as  much  pleasure  out  of  a  journey  to 
Lowell  on  a  canal  which  is  thirty  miles  long  as 
he  may  out  of  a  journey  of  three  hundred 
miles  by  rail  between  Albany  and  Buffalo. 


OUT  OF  DOORS.  123 

But  this  leads  into  metaphysical  considera 
tions  which  do  not  belong  to  the  boyhood  of 
New  England. 

What  did  belong  to  it  was  a  series  of  very 
early  reminiscences  which  have  clung  to  me 
when  more  important  things  have  been  for 
gotten.  Pullum,  of  course,  was  of  the  party. 
He  would  spring  from  the  deck  of  the  General 
Sullivan  upon  the  tow-path,  and  walk  along 
collecting  wild  flowers,  or  perhaps  even  more 
active  game.  I  have  never  forgotten  my  terror 
lest  Fullum  should  be  left  by  the  boat  and 
should  never  return.  When  he  did  return 
from  one  of  these  forays  he  brought  with  him 
for  us  children  a  very  little  toad,  the  first 
I  had  ever  seen.  My  mother  put  him  in  her 
thimble  he  was  so  small.  Not  long  after  we 
heard  that  a  delicate  friend  of  hers  had  taken 
cold  because  she  put  on  her  thimble  when  it 
was  damp.  With  a  child's  facility,  I  always 
associated  the  two  thimbles  with  each  other ; 
and  I  think  I  may  say  I  never  see  a  little  toad 
now,  without  imagining  that  he  is  carrying  the 
seeds  of  catarrh  or  influenza  to  some  delicate 
invalid. 


124      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

We  stayed  at  the  old  tavern  on  the  Merri- 
mac,  which,  I  suppose,  was  long  ago  pulled 
down.  A  story  of  that  time  tells  how  Mr. 
Isaac  P.  Davis,  who  was,  I  think,  one  of  the 
proprietors  of  the  locks  and  canals  which 
made  Lowell,  went  to  this  same  hotel  with  a 
party,  and  inquired  what  they  were  to  have  for 
dinner.  The  keeper  said  that  a  good  salmon 
had  come  up  the  river  the  night  before, 
and  he  proposed  to  serve  him — with  which 
answer  Mr.  Davis  was  well  pleased.  Later  in 
the  morning  he  said  he  should  like  to  see  the 
salmon.  But  the  man  only  expressed  his 
amazement  at  such  folly  on  the  part  of  a  Bos 
ton  man.  "You  don't  suppose  I  would  take 
him  out  of  the  water,  do  you  ?  He  is  in  the 
water  at  the  foot  of  the  falls,  and  has  been 
there  since  last  night.  When  it  is  time  to 
cook  him,  I  shall  go  out  and  catch  him." 


CHAPTER  VI. 

SOCIAL   RELATIONS. 

I  AM  painfully  aware  that,  to  the  diligent 
reader  of  the  last  two  parts  of  this  histor 
ical  study,  it  may  seem  as  if  the  boys  described 
were  a  sort  of  Robinson  Crusoe  and  man 
Friday  who  lived  alone  on  their  happy  island. 
I  feel  as  if  I  had  spoken  as  though  there  were 
an  occasional  invasion  of  savages  or  Spaniards, 
but  that  practically  we  had  little  to  do  with 
the  outside  world.  This  is  by  no  means  true, 
and  I  will  now  try  to  give  some  idea  of  the 
social  conditions  which  surrounded  boyhood 
in  Boston  in  the  years  between  1826  and  1837. 
For  we  were  "in  the  swim,"  as  the  current 
expression  puts  it,  and  no  countenance  would 
have  been  given  to  us,  either  in  any  shyness 
or  for  any  arrogance  which  kept  us  out  of  it. 

I  have  already  said  that,  while  on  the  most 
cordial  terms  with  our  school  companions,  it 

125 


126      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

seemed  as  if  we  left  them  in  another  world  as 
soon  as  school  was  over.  As  I  have  said,  I 
think  the  reason  was  that  most  of  the  fathers 
of  the  other  boys  were  in  mercantile  pursuits, 
and  the  boys'  business,  therefore,  called  them 
quite  regularly  to  the  wharves  to  inspect  the 
large  foreign  trade  of  Boston.  As  it  happened, 
our  father  was  in  other  affairs,  and,  as  natu 
rally,  these  attracted  us. 

In  an  old  New  England  family,  church- 
going,  of  course,  was  an  element  which  had  a 
great  deal  to  do  with  social  life.  I  was  carried 
to  "meeting"  on  the  fourth  Sunday  after  I 
was  born,  and  was  christened  at  the  same  time 
with  two  or  three  other  children.  I  afterwards 
knew  their  names.  They  were  in  families  with 
whom  we  were  well  acquainted,  and  to  this 
hour  that  mystic  tie  seems  to  form  a  relation 
ship  between  me  and  them  and  their  children. 
I  have  to  this  moment  a  little  bit  of  yellow 
paper  which  is,  I  fancy,  the  first  document  but 
one  among  the  memoirs  which  form  my  biog 
raphy.  It  is  the  bill  of  the  "  stable  man  "  who 
sent  his  carriage  on  this  occasion.  "For  car 
rying  three  to  meeting,  sixty  cents."  My  poor 


SOCIAL   RELATIONS.  127 

nine  or  ten  pounds  of  avoirdupois  went  as 
nothing  to  the  hack-driver,  and  no  estimate  is 
made  of  the  cost  to  him  or  to  the  community 
of  the  carrying  to  "meeting"  of  the  person 
who  was,  as  I  must  still  say,  the  most  impor 
tant  individual  in  the  transaction. 

In  those  days  children  were  taken  to  church 
for  regular  attendance  very  early.  I  do  not 
see  any  children  in  my  own  church  who  are  as 
young  as  those  who  went  or  were  taken  then. 
On  our  annual  visits  to  Westhampton  we  were 
always  interested  because  the  young  mothers 
carried  their  babies  to  "meeting,"  at  all  ages. 
They  did  not  like,  I  suppose,  to  stay  at  home 
when  all  the  men  "went  to  meeting,"  and 
accordingly  they  went  with  the  children.  If  a 
baby  cried  the  mother  got  up,  carried  it  out, 
and  sat  on  the  steps  of  the  meeting-house 
until  the  ebullition  of  feeling  was  over, 
when  she  returned.  But  this  was  rather  edi 
fying  as  an  interesting  curiosity  to  us  Boston 
children.  No  babies  were  carried  to  Brattle 
Street  Church  except  for  baptism  ;  but  as  soon 
as  the  children  could  walk,  and  be  relied  upon 
not  to  cry,  I  should  think  the  custom  began. 


128      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

Such  reliance  was  sometimes  misplaced.  I 
am  so  unfortunate  that  I  do  not  remember 
ever  hearing  Dr.  Channing  preach ;  but  it  is 
among  the  disgraceful  records  of  my  life  that 
once,  when  my  mother  thought  she  would  hear 
him,  and,  because  Brattle  Street  Church  was 
being  painted,  went  to  Federal  Street,  she  took 
me  with  her.  She  sat  with  friends,  far  forward 
in  the  broad  aisle,  and  I,  dissatisfied  with  the 
interior  arrangements  of  the  church,  I  suppose 
— probably  dissatisfied  because  I  was  not  where 
I  was  used  to  be  on  Sunday — wept  with  such 
loud  acclaim  that  in  the  middle  of  the  service 
she  was  obliged  to  rise  and  take  me  out  of  the 
church.  I  think  it  was  the  last  experiment  of 
the  sort  that  she  tried.  In  fact,  we  were  very 
loyal  to  our  church.  I  think  all  people  were 
loyal  to  the  churches  they  went  to.  And  to 
such  unfortunate  loyalty  I  owe  it  that,  while  I 
knew  Dr.  Channing  personally,  and  he  was 
very  kind  to  me  as  a  boy,  I  never  had  the 
pleasure  of  hearing  him  preach,  excepting  on 
the  occasion  named,  although  I  was  twenty 
years  old  when  he  died.  I  have,  more  than  once, 
heard  him  speak,  but  never  from  the  pulpit. 


SOCIAL   RELATIONS.  129 

We  "went  to  meeting"  morning  and  after 
noon  always,  and  so,  I  am  apt  to  think,  did 
all  respectable  people  ;  certainly  in  the  earlier 
part  of  those  years.  I  know  that  I  never 
observed  any  distinction  between  the  size  of 
-the  congregation  in  the  afternoon  and  that  of 
the  morning.  I  know  that  any  person  who 
had  been  seen  driving  out  of  town  on  Sunday, 
either  in  the  morning  or  in  the  afternoon, 
would  have  lost  credit  in  the  community.  Fre 
quently  Mr.  Palfrey,  the  minister,  would  say, 
at  the  end  of  the  morning's  sermon,  "  I  shall 
continue  this  subject  in  the  afternoon."  He 
did  so  with  the  perfect  understanding  that  he 
would  have  the  same  hearers.  I  wonder,  in 
passing,  whether  that  phrase  "my  hearers" 
is  as  familiar  oO  young  people  now  as  it  was 
then.  It  was  a  bit  of  pulpit  slang,  such  as 
one  never  hears  in  a  lecture-room  or  in  a 
political  meeting.  The  people,  instead  of 
being  addressed  as  "you"  or  as  "friends," 
or  as  "members  of  the  Church  of  Christ," 
were  spoken  to  as  "hearers."  I  doubt  if  I 
ever  hear  that  word  now  without  giving  it  a 
certain  ecclesiastical  connection. 


130      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

It  was  a  wonder  to  me  then,  and  has  been 
ever  since,  why  the  hour  and  a  quarter  spent 
in  "meeting"  of  a  Sunday  morning  seemed 
as  long  as  the  four  hours  spent  in  school  every 
other  morning.  I  was  early  aware  of  the  curi 
ously  interesting  fact,  which  nobody  ever 
explained  to  me,  that  the  afternoon  service 
was  ten  minutes  shorter  than  the  morning 
service  ;  but  why  that  hour  and  five  minutes, 
should  seem  as  long  as  the  three  hours  spent 
in  school  of  an  afternoon  I  have  never  known, 
and  do  not  know  now.  Besides  these  two 
services,  we  had  the  Sunday-school.  It  seems 
to  me  it  was  always  after  the  afternoon  ser 
vice  ;  I  know  it  was  in  the  earlier  days.  A 
Sunday-school  then  was  a  very  different  thing 
from  what  it  is  now.  Then  you  were  expected 
to  learn  something,  and  you  did.  For  my 
own  part,  I  have  often  said,  and  I  think  it  is 
true,  that  fully  one -half  of  the  important 
information  which  I  now  have  with  regard 
to  the  Scriptural  history  of  mankind— with 
regard  to  the  history  of  the  Jews,  for  instance, 
or  the  travels  of  Paul  right  and  left,  or  any 
thing  else  which  can  be  called  the  intellectual 


SOCIAL   RELATIONS.  131 

side  of  the  Bible — was  acquired  in  Brattle 
Street  Sunday-school  before  I  was  thirteen 
years  old.  We  had  little  books  which  con 
tained  facts  on  these  subjects.  We  had  to 
study  these  books  as  we  did  any  other  school- 
books,  and  we  recited  from  them  as  we  recited 
any  other  lesson.  I  do  not  think  there  was 
much  said  or  thought  about  making  Sunday- 
school  agreeable  to  the  children.  We  were 
told  to  go,  and  we  went ;  we  were  told  to 
learn  a  lesson,  and  we  learned  it.  As  I 
observe  Sunday-schools  now,  this  has  been 
driven  out,  and  driven  out,  I  believe,  by  the 
pressure  of  the  week-day  school  system — a 
pressure  which  I  am  fighting  against  in  every 
quarter  without  success.  For  myself,  I  liked 
to  go  where  my  brother  and  sisters  went.  They 
went  to  the  Sunday-school,  so  I  expressed  a 
wish  to  go. 

Pupils  were  received  there  then,  on  the  1st 
of  January,  and  on  the  first  Sunday  of  the  year 
1827  I  presented  myself  with  the  rest.  But 
it  proved  that  the  rule  of  the  school  was  that 
no  one  should  be  admitted  before  he  was  six. 
I  suppose  they  did  not  want  children  who 


"132  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

could  not  read.  I  could  read  as  well  as  I  can 
now,  and  was  disgusted,  therefore,  when  I 
was  rejected  on  examination.  I  rather  think 
I  was  the  only  child  in  New  England  who  was 
ever  told  that  he  must  not  go  to  Sunday- 
school.  But  I  was  sent  away  on  the  ground 
that  I  was  not  six  years  old.  I  went  home 
with  the  others,  saying,  "  It  is  a  pretty  way  to 
hear  a  fellow  say  his  catechism  by  asking  him, 
'How  old  are  you?'  'How  old  are  you?' 
'  How  old  are  you  ? '  And  I  was  not  per 
mitted  to  go  for  the  next  year.  I  had  already 
taken  the  first  steps  in  the  catechism.  I  had 
learned  in  words  what  I  probably  knew 
already — all,  indeed,  that  is  very  important 
to  learn  in  the  business  of  theology. 

Such  was  going  to  meeting  on  Sunday. 
I  suppose  the  sons  of  Episcopalian  families 
spoke  of  "going  to  church,"  but  we  did  not 
in  my  earlier  childhood.  I  make  the  note 
here,  however,  for  the  benefit  of  "Notes  and 
Queries,"  that,  in  Boston,  the  meeting-houses 
were  always  called  churches  from  the  very 
beginning.  I  think  they  were  net  in  other 
parts  of  Massachusetts.  In  Hales' s  map  of  this 


SOCIAL   RELATIONS.  133 

neighborhood,  of  the  date  of  1826,  you  will 
see  "Rev.  Mr.  Gray's  M.  H.,"  "Rev.  Mr. 
Gile's  M.  H.,"  meaning  "meeting-house"  in 
each  instance. 

Of  week-day  exercises  connected  with 
churches  Boston  knew  almost  nothing,  not 
even  in  Evangelical  circles.  The  fact  was 
known  that  there  was  a  chandelier  in  the  Old 
South  Church,  but  I  do  not  think  the  chande 
lier  was  often  lighted.  When  Park  Street 
Church  was  built,  as  a  sort  of  banner  of  a 
new  dispensation  for  latitudinarian  Boston, 
it  had  arrangements  for  lighting  the  church 
for  an  evening  service.  But  this  was  all 
a  heresy  to  the  old  Boston  Puritan,  whether 
he  were  Evangelical  or  Unitarian. 

For  the  original  theory  of  the  Puritans  is 
that  the  family  is  the  church,  and  that  each 
family  is  a  church.  The  father  of  each  family 
is  a  priest,  and  is  competent  to  carry  on  wor 
ship.  Accordingly  he  does  carry  on  worship  in 
the  morning  and  in  the  evening  ;  and  any  pro 
posal  for  an  evening  service  anywhere  else  was 
regarded  by  the  old  Puritans  as  being,  to  a  cer 
tain  extent,  an  innovation,  because  it  broke  up 


134  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

that  family  worship  which  was  so  essential  in 
their  plan.  I  think  that  in  every  family  of 
which  I  had  any  acquaintance  the  forms  of 
family  worship  were  maintained  in  this  earlier 
period  ;  every  morning  certainly,  and  probably 
every  evening.  When,  therefore,  the  religion 
of  Connecticut  was  introduced  into  Boston  by 
the  building  of  Park  Street  Church,  and  by 
the  arrival  of  my  children's  great-grandfather, 
Lyman  Beecher,  and  the  custom  of  an  occa 
sional  evening  service  on  Sunday  or  on  a  week 
day  came  with  it,  it  was  considered  as  an  entire 
innovation  by  old-fashioned  Boston.  It  was 
quite  as  much  an  innovation  as  calling  an  Epis 
copal  minister  a  "rector"  is  now  to  old- 
fashioned  Episcopalians,  or  as  having  lighted 
candles  in  the  daytime  would  be  at  Trinity. 
To  the  last  moment  of  its  conscious  existence 
the  West  Church  was  never  arranged  for  even 
ing  service ;  and  at  this  moment  you  will  find, 
in  old  Boston  families,  the  habit  of  going  to 
visit  one  another  on  Sunday  evening,  but  not  of 
going  to  church.  Where  people  go  to  church 
steadily  on  Sunday  evening  you  may  generally 
guess  they  are  not  of  old  Boston  blood. 


SOCIAL   RELATIONS.  135 

In  the  interior  of  the  State,  as  at  my  grand 
father's,  for  example,  the  observance  of  "the 
Sabbath  "  stopped  at  sunset.  For  instance,  we 
watched  at  his  house  for  the  sun  to  go  down 
on  Sunday  afternoon,  and  then  brought  out 
our  little  cannons  and  fired  a,  feu  de  joie  in 
honor  of  its  departure.  We  then  played  blind- 
man'  s-buff  all  Sunday  evening,  and  this  in  the 
parsonage  of  a  stiff  Calvinistic  minister.  No 
such  excesses  as  this  would  have  been  per 
mitted  in  Boston.  But  gradually  Sunday 
evening  concerts  came  in,  if  only  they  were 
religious  concerts  ;  and  the  Handel  and  Haydn 
Society,  I  think,  would  hardly  have  been  in 
existence  now  but  for  the  midway  opportunity 
which  Sunday  evening  gave  for  their  perform 
ances.  The  theatres,  on  the  other  hand,  were 
compelled  to  be  closed  on  Saturday  evening 
and  on  Sunday,  until  a  period  later  than  that 
I  am  describing,  when  some  of  the  more  enter 
prising  managers  defied  the  State  and  the  city, 
and  our  statutes  were  changed  so  that  perform 
ances  on  Saturday  evening  were  possible. 
After  they  had  gained  the  point  as  a  matter  of 
right  I  think  they  generally  found  it  more 


136      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

convenient  to  have  the  performances  of  Satur 
day  in  the  afternoon.  Our  present  statute, 
which  defines  the  Lord's  Day  as  from  mid 
night  to  midnight,  is  as  late  as  1844.  Before 
that  time  there  were  certain  restrictions  on 
Saturday  evening,  such  as  the  theatrical 
licenses  indicated. 

Perhaps  the  great  central  day  which  gave 
distinction  and  hope  to  the  duty  of  going  to 
meeting  was  the  proclamation  of  Thanksgiving. 
Let  me  describe  a  scene  in  Brattle  Street  Meet- 
ing-House. 

The  time  is  the  middle  of  November,  on  a 
Sunday  morning.  A  boy  of  four  years  old, 
who  has  the  fortunate  privilege  of  sitting  on 
the  cross-seat  of  the  pew,  is  the  person  who 
describes,  after  sixty-six  years,  what  he  remem 
bers.  Be  it  understood  by  architectural  read 
ers  that  Brattle  Street  Meeting-House  was  a 
fine  old  church  in  Boston,  built  after  the  best 
traditions  of  Wren's  churches  in  London.  It 
has  been  well  said  that  in  the  social  life  of 
London  in  the  days  of  Wren  there  were  reasons 
for  the  high  walls,  as  they  might  be  called, 
which  in  those  churches  concealed  the  wor- 


SOCIAL  RELATIONS.  137 

shippers  in  one  pew  from  those  in  the  next. 
Whatever  was  the  reason,  such  high  pew  walls 
were  the  effect.  The  little  boy,  whose  self  and 
successor  is  now  trying  to  reproduce  him, 
could  sleep,  if  he  chose,  extended  on  the  cross- 
seat  with  his  head  in  his  mother's  lap,  while 
she  listened  to  the  minister.  I  will  not  say 
that  on  this  particular  day  he,  or  I,  had  been 
asleep.  What  is  important  to  the  present 
business  is  that  she  whispers  to  him  that  he 
had  better  listen  now,  for  the  minister  is  going 
to  read  the  proclamation.  The  boy  stands  up 
on  his  seat,  and  with  that  delight  with  which 
even  conservative  childhood  sees  any  custom 
defied  watches  with  rapture  Mr.  Palfrey 
unfolding  the  large  paper  sheet,  which  might 
have  been  a  large  newspaper,  and  sees  the 
sheet  cover  even  the  pulpit  Bible. 

Mr.  Palfrey  is  a  young  man  of  thirty  or 
thereabouts,  who  is  afterwards  to  be  the  distin 
guished  Dr.  Palfrey,  a  leader  of  the  Anti- 
Slavery  opinion  of  Massachusetts.  He  reads 
the  Governor's  proclamation  with  sense  and 
feeling,  so  that  even  a  child  follows  along, 
about  the  taking  care  of  the  poor,  the  happi- 


138      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

ness  of  home,  but  specially  about  the  success 
of  the  fisheries.  It  is  only  in  the  latest  times 
that  any  Massachusetts  Governor  is  so  disloyal 
to  that  ocean  from  whose  breasts  she  has 
drawn  her  life  that  he  fails  to  mention  The 
Fisheries  in  his  proclamation.  But  home,  poor 
people,  fisheries,  and  all  sink  into  their  own 
insignificance  when  with  resonant  voice  the 
minister  ends — with  the  grand  words  : 

Given  in  the  Council  Chamber  at  Boston,  in  the 
year  of  our  Loi-d,  1826,  and  of  the  Independence  of  the 
United  States  the  fiftieth. 

LEVI  LINCOLN,  Governor. 

This  fine  relationship  between  "Thanksgiv 
ing  Day"  and  "  Independence  Day,"  of  which 
the  glories,  six  months  ago,  are  a  certain  hazy 
dream,  is  not  lost  upon  the  child.  And  then 
follow  the  words,  most  grand  in  all  rituals  : 

By  his  Excellency  the  Governor,  with  the  advice  and 
consent  of  the  Council. 

EDWARD  D.  BANGS,  Secretary. 

GOD   SAVE   THE  COMMONWEALTH    OF 
MASSACHUSETTS! 

That  words  so  inspiring,  pronounced  with 
snch  a  clarion  voice,  should  be  uttered  in  a 


SOCIAL   RELATIONS.  139 

church  on  Sunday — this  was  indeed  something 
to  fill  high  the  cup  of  wild,  intoxicating  joy. 
That  Edward  D.  Bangs,  the  secretary,  should 
be  sitting  himself,  watching,  as  it  were,  his  own 
petard,  on  the  other  side  of  the  aisle,  with  his 
finger  resting  on  his  right  ear,  in  a  peculiar 
manner  such  as  was  unknown  to  others — he 
clad  in  a  brown  coat  with  a  velvet  collar — that 
he  should  see  and  hear  all  this  unmoved — this 
added  to  the  grandeur  and  solemnity  and  high 
dignity  of  the  whole.  The  minister  said  that, 
in  accordance  with  the  instructions  of  the 
Executive,  the  church  would  be  open  on 
Thanksgiving  Day,  and  that,  before  that  day 
—namely,  on  the  next  Sunday — a  contribution 
would  be  taken  for  the  poor.  The  boy  asked 
his  mother  if  he  might  bring  some  money — 
and  was  told  that  he  should  have  a  fo' pence  for 
the  occasion.  "  Fo' pence  "  in  the  language  of 
the  time  meant  fourpence-halfpenny  of  the 
currency  of  New  England.  Bat  New  Eng 
land,  though  she  coined  threepences  with  her 
own  pine  tree,  never  coined  fourpence-ha'- 
penny  pieces.  She  used  instead  the  half-real 
of  the  Spanish  coinage.  The  boy  was  to  put 


140  A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

in  the  box,  and  did  put  in  for  many  years  at 
Thanksgiving,  one  of  these  coins,  small  to 
kings,  but  almost  the  largest  known  in  familiar 
use  to  children. 

Passing  by  the  contribution,  and  the  vague 
ideas  which  the  children  had  of  the  immense 
results  to  be  obtained  by  the  distribution  of 
their  wealth  among  the  poor,  I  will  come 
directly  to  Thanksgiving  Day  itself.  Had  we 
children  been  asked  what  we  expected  on 
Thanksgiving  Day  we  should  have  clapped 
our  hands  and  said  that  we  expected  a  good 
dinner.  As  we  had  a  good  dinner  every  day 
of  our  lives  this  answer  shows  simply  that 
children  respect  symbols  and  types.  And 
indeed  there  were  certain  peculiarities  in  the 
Thanksgiving  dinner  which  there  were  not  on 
common  days.  For  instance,  there  was  always 
a  great  deal  of  talk  about  the  Maryborough 
pies  or  the  Marlborough  pudding.  To  this 
hour,  in  any  old  and  well-regulated  family  in 
New  England,  you  will  find  there  is  a  tradi 
tional  method  of  making  the  Marlborough 
pie,  which  is  a  sort  of  lemon  pie,  and  each 
good  housekeeper  thinks  that  her  grandmother 


SOCIAL   RELATIONS.  141 

left  a  better  receipt  for  Marlborough  pie  than 
anybody  else  did.  We  had  Marlborough  pies 
at  other  times,  but  we  were  sure  to  have  them 
on  Thanksgiving  Day ;  and  it  ought  to  be  said 
that  there  was  no  other  day  on  which  we  had 
four  kinds  of  "pies  on  the  table  and  plum 
pudding  beside,  not  to  say  chicken  pie.  In 
those  early  days  ice  creams  or  sherbets  or  any 
of  the  kickshaws  of  that  variety  would  have 
been  spurned  from  a  Thanksgiving  dinner. 

Every  human  being  went  to  "  meeting"  on 
the  morning  of  Thanksgiving  Day,  the  boy  of 
four  years  included.  At  that  age  he  did  not 
know  that  the  sermon  was,  or  might  be,  polit 
ical.  Still  an  attentive  ear  might  catch  words 
from  the  pulpit  which  would  not  have  been 
heard  on  Sunday.  It  was  when  all  parties 
came  home  from  "  meeting  "  that  the  real  fes 
tival  began.  Not  but  what  frequent  visits  to 
the  kitchen  the  day  before  had  familiarized 
even  Young  Boston  with  the  gigantic  scale  on 
which  things  were  conducted.  For  it  was  the 
business  of  the  kitchen,  not  simply  to  supply 
the  feast  in  that  house,  but  the  other  feasts  in 
the  houses  of  feudal  dependents  of  different 


142      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

colors,  who  would  render  themselves  for  their 
pies  and  their  chickens. 

The  hours  absolutely  without  parallel  in  the 
year  were  the  two  hours  between  twelve  and 
two.  We  were  in  our  best  clothes  and  it  was 
Thanksgiving  Day.  We  therefore  did  not  do 
what  we  should  have  done  on  other  days,  and 
we  were  the  least  bit  bored  by  the  change. 
On  other  days  we  should  have  gone  and 
coasted  had  the  snow  fallen ;  or  we  should 
have  gone  into  the  "garret"  and  fought  an 
imaginary  battle  of  Salamis  on  the  floats.  But 
this  was  Thanksgiving  Day,  and  we  therefore 
went  into  the  best  parlor,  not  very  often 
opened,  and  entertained  ourselves,  or  enter 
tained  each  other,  by  looking  at  picture- 
books  which  we  could  not  always  see.  The 
Hogarths  were  out,  the  illustrated  books  of 
travel,  the  handsome  annuals  which  were 
rather  too  fine  for  our  hands  at  other  periods. 
We  were  in  the  position  of  the  boy  and  girl 
invited  to  a  party  where  they  know  nobody, 
standing  in  a  corner  and  pretending  to  be 
interested  by  photographs.  But  before  a 
great  while  the  cousins  would  begin  to  arrive, 


SOCIAL  RELATIONS.  143 

and  then  all  would  be  well.  The  cousins  also 
were  in  their  best  clothes,  to  which  we  were 
not  accustomed.  But  if  we  could  show  them 
the  Hogarths,  or  they  could  tell  us  some 
experience  of  theirs  in  private  theatricals, 
then  the  joys  of  society  began.  And  at  two 
the  party,  larger  than  we  ever  saw  it  at  any 
other  time,  went  into  the  back  parlor,  where 
the  large  table  was  set.  Observe  that  this 
large  table  never  appeared,  unless  the  club 
met  with  my  father,  except  on  Thanksgiving 
Day.  Christmas  Day,  as  a  holiday  of  this 
sort,  was  absolutely  unknown  in  this  Puritan 
family. 

There  would  be  a  side-table  for  the  chil 
dren  at  which  the  oldest  cousin  in  a  manner 
presided,  with  his  very  funny  stories,  with 
his  very  exciting  lore  about  the  new  life  on 
which  he  was  entering,  either  in  the  first  class 
at  the  Latin  School  or  possibly  after  he  had 
left  the  Latin  School.  Occasionally  the  revelry 
at  the  side-table  became  so  loud  that  it  had  to 
be  suppressed  by  a  word  from  the  elders.  At 
the  elders'  table  great  talk  about  genealogy  : 
whether  Gib  Atkins  did  or  did  not  leave  a 


144      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

particular  bit  of  land  to  certain  successors  who 
now  own  it ;  whether  the  Picos  and  the  Robbs 
were  on  good  terms  after  the  marriage  of  one 
of  them  to  another.  I  will  say,  in  passing, 
that,  as  we  grew  older,  we  children  had  the 
wit  to  introduce  these  subjects  for  the  purpose 
of  seeing  the  mad  rage  with  which  different 
aged  cousins  advanced  to  the  attack,  as  a  bull 
might  to  a  red  flag. 

It  may  readily  be  imagined  that,  with  twenty 
or  thirty  guests  and  the  innumerable  courses, 
the  company,  who  were  indeed  in  no  haste,  sat 
a  good  while  at  the  table.  This  was  one  of  the 
marvels  to  us  children,  that  it  was  possible  to 
be  at  dinner  two  hours.  There  was  no  desire 
to  slip  down  from  the  chair  and  go  off  to  play. 
There  was  no  soup  dreamed  of,  and  I  think,  to 
this  day,  that  there  never  should  be  any  at  a 
Thanksgiving  dinner.  Neither  did  any  fish 
follow  where  no  soup  led  the  way.  You  began 
with  your  chicken  pie  and  your  roast  turkey. 
Yon  ate  as  much  as  you  could,  and  you  then 
ate  what  you  could  of  mince  pie,  squash  pie, 
Marlborough  pie,  cranberry  tart,  and  plum 
pudding.  Then  you  went  to  work  on  the 


SOCIAL   RELATIONS.  145 

fruits  as  you  could.  Here,  in  parenthesis,  I 
will  say  to  young  Americans  that  the  use  of 
dried  fruits  at  the  table  was  much  more  fre 
quent  in  those  days  than  in  these.  Dates, 
prunes,  raisins,  figs,  and  nuts  held  a  much 
more  prominent  place  in  a  handsome  dessert 
than  they  do  now.  Recollect  that  oranges 
were  all  brought  from  the  West  Indies  or 
from  the  Mediterranean  in  sailing  vessels,  and 
were  by  no  means  served  in  the  profusion  with 
which  they  are  served  now.  It  has  not  much 
to  do  with  a  Thanksgiving  dinner,  but  bananas 
as  I  have  said  above,  somewhere,  were  wholly 
unknown. 

With  such  devices  the  children  at  the  side- 
table  and  the  elders  at  the  large  table  whiled 
away  the  time  till  it  was  quite  dark,  and  it 
might  well  be  that  the  lamps  were  lighted. 
Observe,  gas  was  wholly  unknown  in  private 
residences.  And  when  at  last  the  last  philo- 
poena  had  been  given  between  two  of  the  chil 
dren,  or  the  last  "roast  turkey"  had  been 
broken  out  of  an  English  walnut  and  saved  as 
a  curiosity,  all  parties  slid  from  their  chairs, 
or  rose  up  from  them,  as  the  length  of  their 


146  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

legs  might  be,  and  adjourned  to  the  large  par 
lor  again. 

At  the  bottom  of  my  heart  I  think  that  here 
came  a  period  in  which  the  elders  quailed.  I 
think  it  was  rather  hard  for  them  to  maintain 
the  conversation  about  genealogy  and  lost 
inheritances.  But  we  children  never  quailed. 
We  either  returned  to  the  picture-books  or  we 
sat  in  the  corner  and  told  stories,  or  possibly 
the  expert  cousins,  who  were  skilled  in  the 
fine  arts,  drew  pictures  for  us.  I  have  not 
the  slightest  recollection,  either  at  that  first 
Thanksgiving  or  on  any  subsequent  Thanks 
giving  of  childhood,  of  any  moment  of  tedious- 
ness  or  gloom,  such  as  I  have  since  found  to 
hang  over  even  the  bravest  in  the  midst  of  a 
high  festivity.  Before  long  we  would  be  in 
the  corner  playing  commerce,  or  old  maid,  or 
possibly  "slap  everlasting";  or  the  Game  of 
Human  Life  would  be  produced,  with  the  tee 
totum,  and  one  would  find  himself  in  the 
stocks,  or  in  a  gambling-room,  or  in  prison 
perhaps,  or  happily,  at  the  age  of  sixty-three 
years,  in  glory.  Memorandum :  It  is  seven 
years  since  I  passed  that  grand  climacteric  of 


SOCIAL    RELATIONS.  147 

7x9  with  which  the  teetotum  games  ended, 
and  I  am  not  in  glory  yet,  unless  the  beauty 
of  an  October  day,  when  leaves  of  gold  shine 
out  between  me  and  the  blue  heavens  may  be 
considered  glory  enough  for  one  who  believes 
that  this  world  was  made  by  a  good  God. 
There  was  nothing  to  prevent  blind-man's-buff, 
but  that  the  elders  had  to  have  their  share  of 
the  room.  In  later  days  charades  came  in, 
and  it  is  now  forty  years  since  I  have  assisted 
at  a  Thanksgiving,  without  annually  acting  the 
part  of  Young  Locfimvar,  or  Lord  Ullin,  or  of 
the  "Captain  bold  of  Halifax."  But  this  I 
did  not  do  when  I  was  four  years  old.  Of 
those  first  Thanksgiving  Days  my  memories 
are  simply  of  undisguised  delight.  I  wonder 
now  that  I  did  not  die  the  day  after  the  first 
of  them  from  having  eaten  five  times  as  much 
as  I  should  have  done.  But  there  seems  to  be 
a  good  Providence  which  watches  over  boys 
and  girls,  as  over  idiots  and  drunken  people. 
This  is  sure,  that  I  have  survived  to  tell  the 
story. 

Social  existence  in  all  forms  of  civilization 


148  A    NEW   ENGLAND    BOYHOOD. 

requires  a  certain  knowledge  of  dancing;  and 
in  conventional  civilization  this  dancing  is  not 
left  to  the  spontaneous  joy  of  children,  but, 
willingly  or  unwillingly,  they  have  to  be  taught 
to  dance.  This  fell  upon  us  as  upon  other 
children,  and  to  the  very  end  of  his  life  Mr. 
Lorenzo  Papanti,  cordial,  graceful,  and  digni 
fied  old  man,  remembered  kindly  that  I  was 
one  of  the  first  four  pupils  whom  he  had  in 
Boston.  He  has  become  so  far  an  historical 
character  to  many  of  the  best  in  Boston  that 
the  reader  will  excuse  me  if  I  give  a  few  words 
to  his  dancing-school.  It  was  in  Montgomery 
Place,  now  Bosworth  Street  ;  I  think  in  the  very 
house  which  was  removed  to  open  the  passage 
through  to  what  we  called  Cooke's  Court,  and 
what  the  present  generation  calls  Chapman 
Place.  It  was  in  the  third  story  of  that 
house,  where  a  partition  had  been  cut  away 
to  make  a  hall  large  enough  for  a  dancing- 
school.  The  papering  at  one  end  still  differed 
from  the  papering  at  the  other.  To  this  hall 
of  Terpsichore  I  repaired  with  three  others, 
and  we  were  the  only  pupils  on  the  first  Thurs 
day  afternoon  of  our  attendance.  On  the  next 


SOCIAL  RELATIONS.  149 

Saturday  there  arrived  more,  one  of  them  one 
of  my  brothers  in  baptism,  of  whom  I  have 
already  spoken  ;  and  from  that  time  the  school 
increased,  and,  as  one  is  glad  to  say,  maintains 
at  this  moment,  under  the  direction  of  another 
generation,  the  high  and  well-deserved  regard 
and  esteem  of  everybody  in  Boston  who  knows 
anything  jibout  it.  This  hall  was  near  our 
house,  so  that  we  could  always  go  on  foot. 
But  there  was  a  rather  tragic  story  in  the 
family  of  the  school  of  M.  Lubasse,  to  which 
my  older  brother  and  sister  went,  which 
was  so  far  away  that  they  had  to  be  sent  in 
a  carriage.  Unfortunately  in  the  jolting  of 
the  carriage  they  were  shaken  off  the  seats, 
and  they  were  so  small  that  they  could  not 
climb  up  on  them  again  before  they  arrived  at 
their  destination.  Thus  early  was  the  art  of 
graceful  movement  impressed  upon  them. 

For  me,  dancing-school  shared  in  the  dislike 
with  which  I  regarded  all  other  schools.  Dear 
Mrs.  Papanti — I  remember  her  with  gratitude 
to  this  moment — did  her  best  for  me,  but  never 
was  a  pupil  less  likely  to  add  to  the  reputation 
of  an  institution.  The  school  was  afterwards 


150       A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

removed  to  Bui  finch  Place,  where  the  Papantis 
had  an  elegant  house.  I  was  at  that  ti  me  bribed 
to  attend  by  being  told  I  might  take  a  book 
with  me  to  read.  One  afternoon,  when  the 
boys  were  carrying  on  awfully,  dear  Mrs. 
Papanti  bore  down  upon  us,  and  said,  "Why 
is  it  that  Master  Hale  is  so  quiet,  while  Master 
Champernoon  behave*  so  badly  ?  "  and  looked 
over  my  shoulder,  to  see  that  I  was  reading 
"  Guy  Mannering."  "  Ah  !  "  she  cried,  "  I  will 
give  Master  Champernoon  a  set  of  the  Waver- 
ley  novels  if  he  will  behave  as  well  as  Master 
Hale  does  !  "  But  alas,  Master  Champernoon 
was  one  of  the  boys  who  enjoyed  dancing,  and 
wanted  to  dance,  and  had  unwarranted  arrange 
ments  with  the  girls  with  regard  to  partners, 
and  so  on,  while  Master  Hale  detested  the 
whole  thing.  Good  soul,  she  did  her  best  in 
dragging  me  about,  as  a  favorite  pupil,  in  the 
waltz  ;  but  my  poor  head  swam,  and  I  think 
my  partners,  from  that  day  to  this,  have 
generally  preferred  to  "stand  through  a 
waltz,"  when  they  have  found  the  alternative 
was  sharing  it  with  me. 

this  led,  of  course,  to  little  evening  par- 


SOCIAL    RELATIONS.  151 

ties  of  the  boys  and  girls,  just  as  it  does  now. 
The  boys  would  stand  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs 
and  in  the  entries,  just  as  they  do  now,  and 
maiden  aunts  would  make  incursions  upon 
them  to  tell  them  that  they  must  take  part 
ners,  just  as  they  do  now.  They  took  these 
partners,  and  then  retired  from  the  field  to 
similar  clusters,  to  be  broken  up  again,  just  as 
they  do  now. 

I  have  tried  to  describe  in  my  story  "East 
and  West"  the  way  in  which  refreshments  were 
generally  served  at  evening  parties,  unless 
these  were  on  the  grandest  scale.  There 
would  frequently  be  such  a  party  without 
a  proper  supper-table.  I  believe  this  was 
largely  due  to  the  fact  that,  in  very  few  houses 
in  Boston]then,  was  there  a  special  dining-room. 
People  dined  in  their  back  parlors,  and  when 
the  house  was  given  up  to  dancing  the  back 
parlor  was  not  available  as  a  supper-room.  At 
the  simpler  parties  to  which  boys  and  girls 
went,  in  place  of  the  supper  a  little  proces 
sion  of  servants  brought  in  large  trays  with 
cake  of  different  kinds,  even  with  ice  cream, 
perhaps  with  jelly  or  blanc  mange,  with  wine 


152      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

or  lemonade  ;  and  these  processions  recurred 
half  a  dozen  times  in  the  course  of  the 
evening. 

Another  function  which  brought  young 
people  together,  and  brought  them  together 
with  older  people,  was  the  arrangement  for 
evening  lectures.  These  were  much  more 
familiar  and  homelike  than  the  lectures  of 
to-day,  to  which  we  go  hardly  with  any 
idea  of  social  enjoyment.  But,  as  I  have  in 
timated,  the  "  march  of  intellect"  had  begun. 
One  feature  of  the  march  of  intellect  was  the 
introduction  of  lectures  for  people  who  wanted 
to  learn  something.  They  were  exactly  what 
is  called  the  university  extension  system 
to-day,  which  I  observe,  however,  is  spoken  of 
everywhere  as  if  it  were  an  entirely  new  inven 
tion.  A  lecture  course  is  now  undertaken  by 
a  director,  or  entrepreneur,  who  means  to  pro 
vide  entertainment  for  the  people.  He  does 
not  pretend  to  teach  the  people  ;  he  proposes 
to  entertain  them.  Therefore,  if  his  course 
consists  of  eight  lectures,  he  provides  eight 
different  entertaining  speakers ;  and  this 
makes  almost  a  class  of  men,  each  of  whom 


SOCIAL   RELATIONS.  153 

has  a  few  entertaining  addresses  prepared  with 
this  definite  purpose.  But  in  the  earlier  days 
of  what  we  called  the  lecture  system,  or  the 
lyceum,  a  body  of  public-spirited  men,  who 
really  wanted  to  improve  the  education  of  the 
community,  banded  themselves  together  into 
a  society  for  that  purpose.  This  society, 
among  other  instrumentalities,  established 
courses  of  lectures,  generally  in  the  winter, 
for  the  instruction  of  the  people. 

In  Boston  such  lectures  had  been  heralded 
by  courses  arranged  by  individuals.  Dr.  Jacob 
Bigelow  had  courses  on  botany  ;  Henry  Ware 
gave  a  course  of  very  popular  lectures  on 
Palestine  ;  Edward  Everett  delivered  lectures 
on  Greek  antiquities ;  and  there  were  other 
similar  courses,  just  as  there  might  be  now,  if 
anybody  would  attend  them.  The  success  of 
these  courses  showed  that  a  systematic  arrange 
ment  might  be  made  for  courses  of  popular 
lectures  in  the  evenings,  and  such  were,  in 
fact,  carried  on  by  different  societies  for 
a  period  of  years.  They  culminated  in  the 
great  success  which  Mr.  John  Lowell  achieved, 
in  the  establishment  of  the  Lowell  Institute  ; 


154      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

and  I  suppose  it  was  this  foundation  which 
broke  down  at  once  all  weaker  foundations 
with  the  same  purpose.  It  does  its  work  so 
well  that  nobody  in  Boston  need  have  any  tears 
for  them.  I  remember  the  Society  for  the 
Promotion  of  Useful  Knowledge,  the  Mercan 
tile  Library  Association,  the  Mechanics'  Ap 
prentices'  Association,  the  Natural  History 
Society,  and  the  Historical  Society,  as  main 
taining  such  courses  of  lectures  as  I  describe. 
There  would  be  from  ten  to  fifteen  lectures  in 
a  course.  The  tickets  for  the  cheapest  were 
fifty  cents  a  course  ;  for  the  others  they  were 
a  dollar,  or  even  two  dollars.  At  our  house 
this  made  no  difference,  because  tickets  to 
everything — concerts,  lectures,  and  the  rest — 
were  sent  to  the  newspaper  office,  and  prac 
tically  we  children  went  to  any  such  entertain 
ments  as  we  liked. 

One  of  these  societies  would  arrange  a  course 
of  lectures.  The  whole  course  might  be  on 
chemistry.  I  remember  such  a  course  from 
Professor  Webster.  It  was  conducted  with 
all  his  brilliant  power  of  experiment,  and 
listened  to  with  enthusiasm  by  four  or  five 


SOCIAL  RELATIONS.  155 

hundred  people.  I  remember  another  course 
by  John  Farrar  on  the  steam-engine.  I  heard 
in  the  Useful  Knowledge  course  several  of 
Mr.  Waldo  Emerson's  biographical  lectures. 
The  Useful  Knowledge  course  would  be  per 
haps  on  Tuesday  evening,  the  Mercantile 
Library  on  Wednesday,  the  Mechanics'  on 
Thursday.  Eventually  halls  were  built  spe 
cially  for  such  lectures.  There  was  one  favor 
ite  hall  in  the  Masonic  Temple,  which  is  now 
occupied,  as  rebuilt,  by  Messrs.  Stearns.  I 
suppose  this  hall  would  hold  five  hundred 
people.  The  seats  rose  rapidly,  as  in  the 
lecture-room  of  a  medical  college,  so  that 
people  could  see  all  the  experiments  or  pict 
ures  on  the  platform. 

To  such  an  entertainment  you  went,  and  if 
you  were  old  enough  you  took  a  friend  of  the 
other  sex.  You  arrived  there  half  an  hour 
before  the  lecture  began,  and  walked  from 
seat  to  seat,  talking  with  the  people  whom  you 
found  there.  After  the  lecture  had  gone  on 
half  an  hour  or  more  there  was  a  recess,  and 
again  you  walked  about  from  seat  to  seat, 
perhaps  chose  another  seat,  if  the  first  had  not 


156      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

been  satisfactory.  At  the  end  of  a  lecture 
of  maybe  an  hour  and  a  half  in  length  you 
went  home  with  anybody  who  chose  to  invite 
you.  At  the  house  you  went  to  there  was 
the  invariable  dish  of  oysters,  or  crackers  and 
cheese,  or  whatever  was  the  evening  meal  of 
that  particular  evening. "  And  thus  the  lyceum 
lecture  of  that  time  played  a  quite  important 
part  in  the  social  arrangements  of  growing 
boys  and  girls. 

Of  its  advantage  as  a  system  of  instruction 
I  can  say  hardly  too  much.  Of  course  the 
instruction  given  was  superficial.  I  have 
lived  seventy  years  in  the  world,  and  I  have 
never  found  any  instruction  that  was  not 
superficial.  But  it  was  instruction  ;  it  was 
instruction  given  by  first-rate  men,  who  knew 
how  to  teach ;  and  it  was  systematic  in 
struction.  The  lecturer  of  to-day  takes  an 
epigrammatic  phrase  for  his  subject,  as  he 
calls  it;  it  is  the  "Philosophy  of  Mathe 
matics,"  or  it  is  the  "Mathematics  of  Phi 
losophy."  He  speaks  well,  he  brings  in 
interesting  stories,  he  gives  a  little  informa 
tion,  and  the  public  which  sees  him  and  hears 


SOCIAL   RELATIONS.  157 

him  is  amused.  Someone  asked  James  Rus 
sell  Lowell  once  whether  he  supposed  that 
the  average  audience  of  an  interior  town  in 
New  York  cared  much  for  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher.  He  said  very  frankly:  "  I  do  not 
suppose  they  care  for  Beaumont  and  Fletcher 
at  all.  But  I  suppose  they  have  heard  of  me 
and  want  to  see  me,  and  a  good  way  to  see  me 
is  to  pay  for  my  lecture,  sit  in  front  of  me, 
and  see  and  hear  me  for  the  hour  in  which  I 
am  reading  something  which  interests  me." 
This  is  very  genuine ;  it  is  all  right ;  it  is  a 
good  bit  of  public  entertainment  for  people 
who  have  been  tired  to  death  by  the  work 
of  the  day.  But  it  is  not  instruction.  Dear 
Starr  King  used  to  say:  "A  lyceum  lecture 
consists  of  five  parts  of  sense  and  five  of  non 
sense.  There  are  not  more  than  five  people  in 
New  England  who  know  how  to  mix  them. 
But  I  am  one  of  the  five."  All  lecturers  do 
not  keep  to  his  recipe. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  believe  that  if  we  could 
wipe  out  the  whole  nonsense  of  the  evening 
lessons  from  the  school  curriculum;  if  we 
could  make  teachers  teach,  where  now  they 


158      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

simply  hear  the  lesson  which  somebody  else 
has  taught ;  if  then  we  would  reserve  our 
evenings  for  instructing  intelligent  boys  and 
girls  in  the  fundamental  principles  of  a  good 
many  things  which  are  best  taught  by  lectures, 
I  believe  that  we  should  improve  the  system 
of  public  instruction  to-day.  It  would  require 
a  good  deal  of  work  on  the  part  of  a  great 
many  intelligent  j)eople.  Possibly  some  time 
there  will  be  a  school  committee  which  will 
think  such  an  enterprise  worthy  of  attention. 

A  few  years  ago  I  looked  in,  late  in  the 
evening,  upon  a  pretty  little  party  of  one  of 
the  largest  classes  in  my  own  Sunday-school. 
I  met  there  perhaps  thirty  of  the  sweetest  and 
most  charming  of  the  younger  women  in  Bos 
ton.  They  had  assembled  at  the  invitation  of 
their  teacher,  who  had  recently  travelled  in  the 
East,  and  they  had  been  spending  the  evening 
in  conversation  with  one  another  and  with 
her,  and  in  examining  the  curiosities,  and 
especially  the  photographs,  which  she  had 
brought  from  Egypt,  Syria,  and  Greece.  In 
this  large  and  brilliant  company  I  was  the 
only  gentleman.  At  half-past  ten,  after  a 


SOCIAL   RELATIONS.  159 

little  supper,  we  all  gathered  to  go  home. 
Comparing  the  detail  of  Boston  life  with  what 
it  would  have  been  fifty  years  before,  I  was 
interested  to  see  that  these  young  ladies  all 
went  home  without  escort  from  the  other  sex. 
Some  of  them  had  ordered  their  carriages  ; 
many  took  street  cars,  which  passed  the  house 
in  one  direction  or  the  other,  and  which  would 
leave  them  within  a  block  of  their  own  resi 
dences.  It  is  certainly  highly  creditable  to 
Boston  that  a  body  of  women,  young  or  old, 
can  use  the  evening  in  such  a  way,  and  can 
disperse  to  their  homes  at  such  an  hour  with 
no  companionship  but  what  they  give  to  one 
another,  and  with  no  hazard  of  insult. 

But  I  thought  then,  and  I  have  often  said 
since,  that  such  a  social  order  was  wholly 
unlike  the  social  order  in  which  I  grew  up. 
When  I  was  a  boy  of  eight,  or  nine,  or  ten,  no 
sister  of  mine  would  have  gone  to  take  tea 
with  a  friend  but  one  of  her  brothers  would 
have  been  detailed  to  go  for  her  and  bring  her 
home  at  eight  or  nine  o'clock.  I  am  quite 
clear  that  in  those  days  the  life  of  young 
people  involved  a  great  deal  more  of  the  visit- 


100  A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

ing  of  both  sexes  together  than  it  does  now.  I 
do  not  mean  to  speak  of  the  life  of  boys  of  fif 
teen  years  old  and  over.  I  speak  of  the  life  of 
boys  of  all  ages,  from  five  or  six  years  upward. 
The  function  of  tea-parties  was  quite  differ 
ent  from  that  of  dinner-parties.  You  would 
invite  two  or  three  boys  and  girls  who  were 
friends  of  your  children  to  come  and  take  tea, 
where  now  you  would  hardly  invite  children 
of  the  same  age  to  come  and  dine.  Now  if 
this  function  happened  to  be  exercised  in  the 
house  of  old-fashioned  people  it  had  some 
rather  queer  attendants — or  what  would  seem 
queer  to  the  boy  of  the  present  day.  For 
instance,  one  of  the  relics  of  Revolutionary 
times  was  the  general  impression  that  no  boy 
could  ever  serve  his  country,  unless  he  were 
trained  as  a  public  speaker.  I  think  this  is 
true  now,  and  it  was  known  to  be  true  then. 
Consequently  when  you  were  at  such  a  party 
as  I  have  described,  the  evening's  entertain 
ment  of  playing  old  maid,  teetotum  games, 
jack-straws,  or  whatever  might  occupy  the 
young  people,  would  be  interrupted,  from  time 
to  time,  by  an  appeal  to  the  boys  of  the 


ag 


SOCIAL   RELATIONS.  161 

party  to  "speak  a  piece"  for  the  benefit  of 
the  elders.  There  was  a  certain  compliment 
implied  in  being  asked  to  "speak  a  piece," 
but  it  was  not  a  great  compliment,  for  every 
boy  was  asked,  not  to  say  compelled,  to  do  so. 
It  would  have  been  bad  form  to  decline  to 
speak,  quite  as  much  as  it  would  be  to  sit  at  a 
dinner- table  and  decline  to  eat  anything  before 
yon,  as  if  it  were  of  a  quality  poorer  than  that 
to  which  you  were  accustomed. 

Accordingly  you  had  one  or  two  "pieces" 
in  mind  which  you  were  prepared  to  "  speak." 
When  you  were  called  upon — when  the  old 
ladies,  at  their  side  of  the  room,  had  made  up 
their  minds  that  it  was  time  for  this  exercise 
to  go  forward — you  were  told,  "Master  Ed 
ward"  (or  Master  Oliver,  or  Master  Alexan 
der),  "the  company  would  like  to  have  you 
speak  a  piece."  You  demurred  as  little  as 
you  could,  you  went  into  a  corner,  you  made 
a  bow,  and  you  spoke  a  piece.  You  then  went 
back  to  your  cards  or  other  entertainment.  I 
do  not  remember  that  the  girls  sang  songs,  as 
it  seems  to  me  they  should  have  done,  under 
the  circumstances. 


162      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

At  such  a  little  party,  again,  invariably  the 
tray  was  brought  in  as  the  evening  went  by, 
and  you  ate  the  nuts  and  raisins  or  figs,  which 
were  generally  something  you  did  not  have  nt 
home.  Perhaps  this  is  always  one  of  the 
charms  of  social  life. 

There  may  be,  by  the  way,  no  other  oppor 
tunity  in  these  papers  to  quote  the  amusing 
passage  from  Dr.  Palfrey  on  salt  codfish.  It 
is  in  his  admirable  chapter  on  New  England 
life,  in  which  he  followed  the  example  of 
Macaulay's  celebrated  chapter  describing  the 
family  institutions  of  England. 

Forty  years  ago  I  was  so  situated  as  to  know  un 
commonly  well  the  habits  of  different  classes  of  people 
in  different  parts  of  the  country.  Till  a  later  period 
than  this  the  most  ceremonious  Boston  feast  was  never 
set  out  on  Saturday  (then  the  common  dinner-party  day) 
without  the  dunfish  at  one  end  of  the  table ;  abundance, 
variety,  pomp  of  other  things,  but  that  unfailingly.  It 
was  a  sort  of  New  England  point  of  honor;  and  luxuri 
ous  livers  pleased  themselves,  over  their  nuts  and  wine, 
•with  the  thought  that,  while  suiting  their  palates,  they 
had  been  doing  their  part  in  a  wide  combination  to 
maintain  the  fisheries  and  create  a  naval  strength. 

There  was  one  function  of  those  days  which 
has  been  admirably  improved  in  ;the  customs 


SOCIAL   RELATIONS.  163 

of  later  days.  Franklin  left  a  small  fund  to 
the  city,  to  be  expended  in  medals  for  the  most 
deserving  scholars.  The  Franklin  medal  was 
first  awarded  in  1792,  is  awarded  to  the  present 
time,  and  is  a  good  badge  of  honor  to  the 
genuine  Boston  boy.  The  school  committee 
and  the  government  of  the  city  dined  together, 
on  the  day  of  the  school  anniversary,  in  Fan- 
euil  Hall,  and  the  boys  who  received  the 
Franklin  medals  were  then  first  initiated  into 
the  forms  of  a  public  dinner.  There  must 
have  been  some  sort  of  a  procession — I  do  not 
know,  for  I  never  had  a  Franklin  medal — and 
the  boys  sat  in  Faneuil  Hall  and  heard  the 
speaking.  But  as  years  went  on,  after  the 
time  of  which  I  speak,  arid  particularly  after 
the  girls  began  to  receive  city  medals,  it  was 
seen  that  a  much  pleasanter  entertainment 
could  be  devised  for  the  children  than  a  feast 
at  which  the  officers  of  the  city  government 
took  the  principal  part,  and  in  which  almost 
all  parties  drank  more  wine  than  was  good 
for  them.  And  in  these  later  days  the  mayor 
holds  a  great  reception  in  the  large  Me 
chanics'  Hall ;  he  gives  to  every  graduating 


164      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

girl  a  bouquet,  and  the  boys  and  girls 
dance  together  to  music  which  the  city  pro 
vides.  I  mention  the  contrast,  because  I  am 
quite  sure  that  in  the  years  between  1826  and 
1837  there  would  have  been  a  religious  prejudice 
in  some  quarters  against  dancing,  which  would 
have  prevented  any  such  public  celebration. 

The  boys  were  in  touch  with  the  large  public 
in  their  unauthorized  and  unrecognized  con 
nection  with  the  fire  department.  Boston  was 
still  a  wooden  town,  and  the  danger  of  fire 
was,  as  it  is  in  all  American  cities,  constantly 
present.  There  hung  in  our  front  entry  two 
leather  buckets  ;  in  each  of  them  was  certain 
apparatus  which  a  person  might  need  if  he 
were  in  a  burning  house.  Strange  to  say, 
there  was  a  bed-key,  that  he  might  take  down  a 
bedstead  if  it  were  necessary.  These  were  relics 
of  a  time  when  my  father  had  been  a  member 
of  one  of  the  private  fire  companies.  In  those 
associations  each  man  was  bound  to  attend  at 
any  fire  where  the  property  of  other  members 
of  the  association  was  in  danger  ;  and  there 
were  traditions  of  father' shaving  been  present 
at  the  great  Court  Street  fire,  for  instance. 


SOCIAL   RELATIONS.  165 

But  these  fire  clubs  either  died  out  or  be 
came  social  institutions,  as  the  Fire  Club  in 
Worcester  exists  to  this  day;  and  nothing  was 
left  but  the  bucket  as  a  sort  of  memorial 
of  a  former  existence. 

Before  our  day  the  volunteer  fire  depart 
ment  system  of  Boston  had  been  created,  and 
there  were  similar  systems  in  all  large  cities. 
Of  course  we  boys  supposed  that  ours  was  the 
best  in  the  world  ;  each  boy  in  Boston  sup 
posed  that  the  engine  nearest  his  house  was 
the  best  engine  in  the  world,  and  that,  on 
occasion,  it  could  throw  water  higher  than 
any  other  engine.  It  could  likewise,  on 
occasion,  pump  dry  any  engine  that  was  in 
line  with  it.  I  need  not  say  that  these  notions 
of  the  boys  were  simply  superstitions,  wholly 
unfounded  in  fact.  Our  engine  was  the  New 
York.  The  engine-house  was  one  of  a  curious 
mass  of  public  buildings  that  occupied  the 
place  where  Franklin's  statue  now  stands,  in 
front  of  what  was  the  court-house  of  that  day. 
There  was  no  electric  fire  alarm  in  those  early 
days.  The  moment  a  fire  broke  out  every 
body  who  had  any.  lungs  ran  up  the  street  or 


166      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

down  the  street,  or  both  ways,  crying  "Fire  !  " 
and  as  soon  as  the  churches  could  be  opened, 
all  the  bells  in  Boston  began  to  ring.  Then 
the  company  which  was  to  drag  the  New  York 
to  the  fire  began  to  assemble  at  its  house,  and 
naturally  there  was  great  pride  in  seeing  that 
your  engine  was  first  in  place.  You  learned 
where  the  fire  was,  not  by  any  signal,  but  by  the 
rumor  of  the  street.  It  was  at  the  North  End, 
or  at  the  South  End,  or  on  the  wharves,  or  on 
"  Nigger  Hill."  As  soon  as  boys  and  men,  of 
whatever  connection,  arrived,  sufficient  to  drag 
the  engine,  it  started,  under  the  direction  of 
such  officer  of  the  company  as  might  be  pres 
ent.  The  members  of  the  company  had  no 
uniforms,  so  far  as  I  remember ;  they  joined 
the  lines  as  quickly  as  they  could,  but  there 
were  always  enough  people  to  pull.  As  I  have 
intimated,  it  was  everybody's  business  to 
attend  at  the  fire. 

When  you  arrived  at  the  spot  there  would 
be  a  general  caucus  as  to  the  method  of  attack, 
yet  I  think  there  were  people  in  command. 
Afterwards  a  gentleman  named  Amory,  highly 
respected  by  all  of  us,  was  chief  engineer. 


SOCIAL   RELATIONS.  167 

Whatever  the  caucus  directed  was  done,  with 
as  much  efficiency  as  was  possible  under  such 
democratic  institutions.  But,  in  the  first 
place,  the  probability  was  that  there  was  no 
water  near.  The  Jamaica  Pond  aqueduct  car 
ried  water  in  log  pipes  to  the  lower  levels  of  the 
city  ;  but,  for  fully  half  the  city,  there  was  no 
such  supply,  and  wells  had  to  be  relied  upon. 
Every  engine,  therefore,  which  was  good  for 
anything  was  a  "suction  engine,"  as  it  was 
called;  that  is,  it  was  able  to  pump  from  a  well, 
as  well  as  able  to  throw  water  to  an  indefinite 
height.  The  engine  that  arrived  first  repaired 
to  the  well  best  known  in  that  neighborhood, 
or,  if  the  occasion  were  fortunate,  to  the  sea,  and 
began  to  pump.  The  engine  that  arrived  next 
took  station  next  to  this,  and  pumped  from  it 
through  a  long  line  of  hose  ;  and  so  successive 
engines  carried  the  water  to  the  place  where 
some  foreman  directed  it  upon  the  flames.  It 
was  thus  that  the  different  engines  attained 
their  celebrity,  as  one  pumped  the  tub  of 
another  dry,  while  the  unfortunate  members 
were  "working  the  brakes"  to  their  best  to 
keep  it  full. 


168      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

The  buckets  of  which  I  have  spoken  were 
the  remains  of  a  yet  earlier  period,  when 
people  formed  themselves  in  line  to  the  well 
or  to  the  sea,  and  passed  buckets  backward 
and  forward— full  if  they  were  going  toward 
the  fire,  empty  if  they  were  going  away  ;  and 
the  water  was  thus  thrown  upon  such  flames 
as  chose  to  wait  for  it. 

When  one  writes  this,  one  wonders  that 
Boston  was  not  burned  down  four  times  a 
year ;  indeed,  there  were  many  bad  fires  in 
those  days.  The  system  called  out  some  of 
the  most  energetic  and  public-spirited  young 
fellows  of  the  town,  and  after  a  while  they 
were  exempt  from  service  in  the  militia.  Well 
they  might  be,  for  their  service  as  firemen  was 
far  more  valuable  to  the  community,  and  far 
more  oppressive  in  time  and  health,  than  any 
service  in  the  militia  of  those  days.  They  felt 
their  power,  and  asserted  it  once  too  often. 
In  the  mayoralty  of  Mr.  Samuel  A.  Eliot  a 
company  did  something  it  should  not  have 
done,  or  refused  to  do  something  it  was  told 
to  do  ;  with  a  firm  hand,  he  turned  them 
all  out,  and  created  the  system  of  the  fire 


SOCIAL  RELATIONS.  169 

department  of  to-day,  in  which  every  man  is 
paid  for  his  services,  and  may  be  regularly 
called  upon,  whether  he  will  or  no,  as  a  ser 
vant  of  the  city.  The  introduction  of  steam 
fire-engines,  and  a  sufficient  supply  of  water, 
would  in  themselves  have  been  enough  to 
revolutionize  the  whole  of  the  primitive 
method  of  extinguishing  fire,  had  no  such 
revolt  of  the  fire  companies  compelled  a  rev 
olution. 

I  need  hardly  say  that  the  old  method 
interested  to  the  full  every  boy  in  town.  If 
his  father  and  mother  would  let  him,  he 
attended  the  fire,  where  he  could  at  least  scream 
"Fire  !  "  if  he  could  not  do  anything  else.  If 
a  boy  were  big  enough  he  was  permitted 
almost  to  kill  himself  by  working  at  the  brakes. 
This  was  the  most  exhausting  method  for  the 
application  of  human  power  that  has  been 
contrived  ;  but  there  was  power  enough  to  be 
wasted,  and,  until  the  introduction  of  steam, 
it  was  everywhere  used.  It  is  still  .used  on 
board  ships  which  have  no  steam  power. 
Every  enterprising  boy  regarded  it  as  the  one 
wish  of  his  life  that  he  might  be  eighteen  years 


170      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

old,  so  that  he  could  join  the  company  in  his 
particular  neighborhood  ;  and  even  if  he  had 
not  attained  that  age,  he  attached  himself  to 
the  company  as  a  sort  of  volunteer  aid,  and, 
as  I  say,  was  permitted,  as  a  favor,  to  assist  in 
running  through  the  streets,  dragging  at  the 
long  rope  which  drew  the  engine. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  WORLD  NEAR  BOSTON. 

r  I  THE  Broad  Street  Riot,  so  called,  on  the 
J-  afternoon  of  June  11,  1837,  was  an  event 
which  of  course  had  great  interest  for  the  boys 
of  the  period.  It  was  the  fortune  of  very  few 
of  them,  however,  who  were  decently  brought 
up,  to  have  any  hand  in  that  conflict ;  for,  as 
I  have  said  in  another  chapter  of  these  recol 
lections,  people  in  those  days  went  to  "  meet 
ing"  as  regularly  in  the  afternoon  as  they  did 
in  the  morning. 

If  there  should  be  need  to-day  for  the  sud 
den  appearance  of  the  military  forces  of 
Boston  on  a  Sunday  afternoon  I  think  that 
the  officers  of  those  forces  would  be  looked  for 
quite  as  readily  at  the  Browning  Club  or  a 
chess  club,  or  possibly  even  exercising  their 
horses  somewhere  within  ten  miles  of  Boston, 
as  at  any  place  of  public  worship.  But  my 
whole  personal  recollection  of  the  Broad 


171 


172  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

Street  Riot  is  that,  of  a  sudden,  the  bell  of 
Brattle  Street  Church  struck  "backward," 
and  the  gentlemen  who  were  of  the  First  Regi 
ment  rose  and  left  their  seats,  and  went  down 
to  the  armory  at  Faneuil  Hall  to  join  their 
companies,  not  to  say  lead  them.  It  was  said, 
and  I  believe  truly,  that  a  sergeant  formed  the 
first  men  who  arrived  in  skeletons  of  compa 
nies,  and  in  a  skeleton  of  a  regiment.  George 
Tyler  Bigelow,  afterwards  chief  justice  of  the 
Supreme  Court,  was  the  first  commissioned 
officer  who  arrived.  He  was  a  lieutenant  in 
the  New  England  Guards  or  the  Light  In 
fantry.  He  ordered  the  regiment  out  of  the 
armory,  and  commanded  it  till  he  met  a  supe 
rior  officer.  The  story  was  that  the  command 
changed  half  a  dozen  times  before  the  regi 
ment  reached  Broad  Street,  where  firemen  arid 
Irishmen  were  fighting.  Of  which  I  saw  and 
remember  nothing.  But  the  departure  of 
those  gentlemen  from  church,  whom  we  would 
have  joined  so  gladly,  fixed  the  whole  affair  in 
our  memories.  In  a  boy  journal  of  the  time, 
I  find  the  comment,  after  I  had  read  the  news 
paper  account,  "  The  Irish  got  well  beaten,  but 


THE  WORLD  NEAR  BOSTON.  173 

the  firemen  appear  to  have  been  as  much  in 
the  wrong  as  they." 

In  all  these  reminiscences  I  am  well  aware 
that  our  lives  were  much  less  affected  by  the 
daily  news  from  abroad  than  are  the  lives  of 
people  now.  Certainly  Boston  regarded  itself 
more  as  a  metropolis  than  it  does  now.  And 
for  this  there  was  good  reason  :  for  Boston  had 
much  less  connection  with  the  rest  of  the 
world  than  it  has  now.  It  had  a  foreign  com 
merce,  and  the  average  boy  expected  to  go  to 
sea  some  time  or  other.  But  I  recollect  times 
when  a  vessel  from  England  brought  thirty- 
five  days'  news  ;  all  through  the  time  of  which 
I  am  writing  it  took  three  days  for  a  letter  to 
go  to  Washington  ;  and  although  people  no 
longer  offered  prayers  for  their  friends  when 
they  we,re  going  to  New  York,  still  a  journey 
to  New  York  was  comparatively  a  rare  busi 
ness.  In  my  third  year  in  college  I  wanted 
to  send  a  parcel  of  dried  plants  to  a  botanist 
in  New  York.  There  was  no  proper '  *  express, ' ' 
and  I  asked  it  as  a  personal  favor  of  a  young 
man  named  Harnden,  whom  I  knew  as  a  con 
ductor  on  the  Boston  and  Worcester  Railroad, 


174      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

that  he  would  give  the  parcel  to  someone  who 
would  give  it  to  someone  else  who  would  give 
it  to  my  correspondent.  It  was  because  Mr. 
Harnden  had  so  many  such  personal  favors  in 
hand  that  he  established  Harnden' s  Express, 
which  was,  I  think,  the  first  of  the  organized 
expresses  which  existed  in  this  country. 

I  find  it  difficult  to  make  the  Boston  boy  or 
girl  of  to-day  understand  how  different  was 
Boston  life,  thus  shut  in  from  the  rest  of  the 
world,  from  our  life,  when,  as  I  suppose,  at 
least  one  hundred  thousand  people  enter  Bos 
ton  every  day,  and  as  many  leave  it  for  some 
place  outside. 

As  late  as  May,  1845,  when  I  was  twenty- 
three  years  old,  I  had  an  engagement  to  go 
from  Boston  to  Worcester  Saturday  afternoon. 
I  was  to  preach  there  the  next  day.  When,  at 
three  o'clock,  I  came  to  the  station  of  the 
Worcester  road,  there  was  an  announcement 
that,  from  some  accident  on  the  line  above, 
no  train  would  leave  until  Monday.  The 
three  o'clock  train,  observe,  was  the  latest 
train  of  Saturday.  I  crossed  Boston  to  the 
Fitchburg  station  and  took  the  train  for 


THE  WORLD  NEAR  BOSTON.  175 

Groton  or  Littleton.  There  I  took  a  stage  for 
Lancaster,  where  I  slept.*  In  the  morning, 
with  a  Worcester  man  who  had  been  caught  in 
Boston  as  I  was,  I  took  a  wagon  early,  and  we 
two  drove  across  to  Worcester.  That  is  to 
say,  as  late  as  1845  there  were  but  two  men  in 
Boston  to  whom  it  was  necessary  that  they 
should  go^to  Worcester  that  afternoon.  And 
this  was  ten  years  after  railroad  communica 
tion  had  been  established. 

Before  railroad  communication  was  open, 
intercourse  with  other  States,  or  with  what 
now  seem  neighboring  cities,  was  very  infre 
quent.  In  1832  my  father  went  to  Schenectady 
to  see  the  Albany  and  Schenectady  Railroad, 
and,  I  believe,  to  order  some  cars  for  the  Bos 
ton  and  Worcester  road.  He  also  went  to 
New  York  City  on  the  business  of  that  road. 

*  As  I  write  these  memoranda,  in  September,  1892,  just  as 
we  have  heard  of  Mr.  Whittier's  death,  there  is  a  certain 
interest  in  saying  that  it  was  on  this  occasion  that  I  first  met 
him.  As  the  handful  of  passengers  entered  the  stage  which 
was  to  take  us  to  Lancaster,  Mr.  Whittier  was  one  of  the  num 
ber.  He  did  not  tell  his  name  to  anyone,  and  it  was  many 
years  before  I  knew  that  he  was  one  of  those  whose  pleasant 
conversation  enlivened  the  dark  ride.  I  can  hardly  say  that  I 
saw  him,  but  he  was  kind  enough  afterwards  always  to  remem 
ber  that  I  made  his  acquaintance  on  that  occasion. 


176      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

I  think  he  had  been  to  that  city  but  once  since 
1805,  when  he  went  there  on  his  way  from 
Northampton  to  Troy.  Yet  if  anybody  was 
to  travel  he  would  have  been  apt  to.  He  was 
a  journalist,  intensely  interested  in  internal 
improvement.  He  had  a  large  business  cor 
respondence  in  New  York,  and  was  well  known 
there.  I  was  myself  nineteen  years  old  when 
I  first  visited  New  York. 

In  1841  I  had  a  chance  to  overhaul  the  old 
register  at  the  hotel  at  Stafford  Springs  in  Con 
necticut.  Stafford  Springs  was,  and  is,  a 
watering-place  of  a  modest  sort,  where  is  a 
good,  strong  iron  spring — good  for  boys  with 
warts,  and  indeed  for  anyone  who  needs  iron 
in  his  blood.  It  was  quite  the  fashion  to  go 
to  Stafford  Springs  from  different  parts  of  New 
England,  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  century. 
In  this  old  register  it  was  interesting  to  see 
how  universal  was  the  custom  by  which  people 
came  there  in  their  own  carriages.  What  fol 
lowed  was  that  people  who  had  no  carriages 
of  their  own  hardly  travelled  for  pleasure  at  all. 

So  was  it  that,  in  the  years  of  my  boyhood, 
Boston  people,  with  very  few  exceptions,  lived 


THE   WORLD   NEAR   BOSTON.  177 

in  Boston  the  year  round.  People  did  not 
care  to  go  to  the  theatre  in  midsummer,  and  I 
think  the  theatres  were  generally  closed  for 
six  or  eight  weeks  when  the  days  were 
longest.  Perhaps  Boston  used  the  matchless 
advantages  of  her  bay  more  when  she  had 
little  communication  with  points  beyond  it. 
Perhaps  the  entertainments  of  the  bay  seemed 
more  important  because  there  were  few,  if  any, 
excursions  for  pleasure  excepting  those  which 
the  water  offered. 

Nahaut  was  seized  upon  as  a  sea-shore  resort 
as  early  as  1819.  The  sea  serpent  had  appeared 
in  1817.  The  hotel  on  the  south-eastern  point, 
long  since  burned  down,  was  a  pretty,  piazza- 
guarded  building ;  and,  as  the  steamboat 
Housatonic  went  down  to  Nahant  every  morn 
ing,  and  came  back  every  night,  a  day  at 
Nahant  made  a  charming  summer  expedi 
tion,  which  we  young  folks  relied  upon  at 
least  once  a  year.  At  Nahant,  at  Chelsea 
Beach,  at  Nantasket,  at  Sandwich,  and  at 
Gloucester  I  made  my  acquaintance  with  the 
real  ocean.  At  Nahant  I  made  my  first 
acquaintance  with  the  joy  of  the  bowling 


178  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

alley,  and  first  saw  the  game  of  billiards. 
By  the  way,  I  remember  that,  in  lecturing  to 
my  class  in  college,  as  late  as  1837,  Professor 
Lovering  had  to  tell  the  class,  as  a  fact  which 
half  of  them  did  not  know,  that  when  one 
billiard-ball  strikes  another  it  may  stop  itself, 
while  it  communicates  its  motion  to  the  other. 
I  doubt  if  half  the  young  men  who  heard  him 
had  ever  seen  a  billiard-table  at  that  time. 

There  were  but  one  or  two  steamboats  in  the 
harbor,  so  that  the  "  excursion"  of  to-day  was 
very  infrequent.  But  all  the  more  would  peo 
ple  go  down  the  bay  for  fishing-parties,  on 
sailing  vessels — more,  I  should  think,  than 
they  do  now.  Perhaps  there  was  something 
in  foreign  commerce  which  gave  to  those 
engaged  in  it  a  sort  of  absolute  freedom  some 
times,  sandwiched  in  with  hard  work  at  others, 
in  an  alternate  remission  of  work  and  play, 
which  the  modern  merchant  seldom  enjoys. 
Your  ship  came  in  from  Liverpool  or  from 
Calcutta,  and  you  and  all  your  staff,  down  to 
the  boy  who  swept  out  the  office  and  trimmed 
the  lamps,  were  busy,  morning,  noon,  and 
night,  till  her  cargo  was  disposed  of,  and  per- 


THE   WORLD   NEAR   BOSTON.  179 

haps  till  she  was  fitted  for  another  voyage. 
But  then,  if  no  other  of  your  ships  arrived, 
there  would  be  a  lull ;  and  if  Tom,  Dick,  or 
Harry  came  in  to  propose  a  fishing-party  you 
were  ready. 

However  this  may  be,  the  history  and  expe 
riences  of  such  parties  made  a  considerable 
element  of  summer  life.  The  anecdote  of  Gen 
eral  Moreau  belongs  to  them,  and  I  will  print 
it,  though  it  was  told  a  generation  before  my 
time.  When  General  Moreau  was  in  exile 
from  France  he  came  on  his  travels  to  Boston. 
Among  other  entertainments  he  was  taken 
down  the  bay  on  a  fishing-party.  As  they 
dined,  or  after  dinner,  excellent  Colonel  Mes 
senger,  whose  singing  is  still  remembered  with 
pleasure,  was  asked  to  favor  the  company 
with  a  song,  and  he  sang  the  fine  old  English 
song  of  "  To-morrow."  The  refrain  is  in  the 
words : 

To-morrow,  to-morrow, 

Will  be  everlasting  to-morrow. 

The  French  exile  did  not  understand  English 
as  well  as  he  did  the  art  of  war,  and  when 


180  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

Colonel  Messenger  came  to  these  words,  at 
the  end  of  each  verse,  he  supposed,  naturally 
enough,  that  he  was  hearing  a  song  made  in 
his  own  honor  : 

To  Moreau,  to  Moreau, 

Je  n'en tends  pas  bien,  mais  to  Moreau. 

And  so  lie  rose,  as  each  verse  closed,  put  his 
hand  to  his  heart,  blushed,  and  bowed  grate 
fully,  as  to  a  personal  compliment.  And  his 
hosts  were  too  courteous  to  undeceive  him. 

The  Harvard  Navy  Club,  an  institution  long 
since  dead,  used  to  "go  down,"  as  the  abbre 
viated  phrase  was,  every  year.  "Go  down" 
was  short  for  "go  down,  the  bay  and  fish." 
The  Navy  Club  was  a  club  of  those  men  who 
received  no  college  honors.  The  laziest  man  in 
a  class  was  the" *  Lord  High  Admiral";  the 
next  to  the  laziest  was  the  "Admiral  of  the 
Blue,"  and  so  on. 

Perhaps  there  are  not  so  many  fish  in  the 
bay  as  there  were  then.  Perhaps  I  am  not  so 
much  interested  in  the  boys  who  take  them. 
But  I  do  not  see,  when  I  cross  the  bridge  to 
East  Cambridge,  any  boy  patiently  sitting  on 


THE  WORLD  NEAR  BOSTON.  181 

the  rail  waiting  to  catch  flounders,  as  I  have 
done  many  a  happy  afternoon.  Perhaps,  as 
civilization  has  come  in,  the  flounders  have 
stayed  lower  down  the  bay. 

Travelling,  in  short,  was  done  by  retail  in 
those  days,  and  such  combinations  as  those  of 
to-day,  by  which  a  hundred  thousand  people 
are  thrown  upon  Boston  daily,  and  as  many 
taken  away,  were  wholly  unknown,  not  to  say 
not  dreamed  of.  Retail  travelling,  if  we  are 
to  use  that  expression,  had  some  points  of 
interest  which  do  not  enliven  the  career  of  a 
traveller  who  is  boxed  up  in  a  train  with  three 
hundred  and  ninety-nine  others,  all  of  them  to 
be  delivered,  "right  side  up  with  care,"  at 
the  place  they  wish  to  go  to,  while  none  of 
them  have  what  John  Locke  would  call  an 
"adequate  idea"  of  the  places  on  the  way,  if 
indeed  any  of  them  have  any  idea. 

The  first  of  such  expeditions  which  I  remem 
ber,  excepting  one  on  the  Middlesex  Canal, 
which  has  been  referred  to,  was  in  August  and 
September  of  1826,  when  my  father  took  all  of 
us — that  is,  my  mother  and  four  children — to 
Sandwich,  where  he  was  going  to  enjoy  a 


182      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

week's  shooting.  The  other  gentlemen  of  the 
party  were  Daniel  Webster,  Judge  Story,  and 
Judge  Fay.  Mr.  Webster  took  his  family 
with  him  ;  I  think  the  other  gentlemen  did 
not  take  theirs.  All  of  us  stayed  at  Fessen- 
den's  tavern — charmingly  comfortable  then,  I 
fancy,  as  I  know  it  was  afterwards.  My  early 
memories  of  the  expedition  are  quite  distinct. 
It  was  here  and  then  that  I  first  fired  the  gun 
which  is  the  oldest  sporting  gun  here  at  Matu- 
nuck  ;  and  a  good  gun  it  is,  if  tpeople  are  not 
above  an  old-fashioned  percussion  cap.  But 
in  those  days  it  had  a  flintlock.  The  general 
use  of  what  are  now  unknown  to  young  sports 
men,  percussion  caps,  belongs  some  years 
later.  The  bigger  boys,  Fletcher  Webster  and 
my  brother  Nathan,  would  be  taken  out  with 
the  gentlemen  to  hold  the  horses  (in  chaises, 
observe)  on  the  beach,  while  their  fathers 
walked  about  and  shot  what  they  might. 
But  we  little  fellows  stayed  at  home,  to  be 
lifted  to  the  seventh  heaven  if  a  loaded  gun 
were  brought  home  at  night  which  we  might 
aim  and  fire  at  a  shingle.  For  us  and  the 
girls  the  principal  occupation,  I  remember, 


THE   WORLD   NEAR   BOSTON.  183 

was  playing  dinner  and  tea  with  the  pretty 
glassware  which  the  Sandwich  works  were 
just  beginning  to  make.  I  believe  I  have 
somewhere  at  this  day  some  specimens  of 
their  work  for  children. 

On  this  expedition  we  went  and  returned, 
some  in  the  "stage"  and  some  in  my  father's 
chaise — making  the  journey,  I  think,  in  a  day. 
But  generally,  with  so  large  a  host  as  ours — 
which  included  Fullum — we  went  on  the  sum 
mer  journey,  whatever  it  was,  in  what  was 
then,  as  it  is  indeed  now,  called  a  "  barouche." 
The  names  "landau,"  "victoria,"  and  the  like 
were,  I  think,  unknown.  As  this  business  was 
by  no  means  peculiar  to  our  family,  and  as  it 
belongs  to  a  civilization  quite  unlike  ours,  I 
will  describe  it  in  detail. 

We  were  to  go  to  Cape  Ann,  and  for  perhaps 
a  week  to  take  such  comfort  as  the  great 
"  tavern  "  at  Gloucester  would  give.  Observe 
that  the  word  "tavern"  was  still  used,  as 
I  think  it  now  is  where  a  tavern  exists  in  the 
heart  of  New  England,  for  what  the  English 
man  calls  an  "inn."  We  talk  now  of  the 
Wayside  Inn,  the  Wayland  Inn,  and  so  on, 


184      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

but  this  is  all  in  a  labored,  artificial,  and  indeed 
foreign  speech  introduced  from  England  within 
a  generation  past.  To  prepare  for  such  an 
expedition  Fulliun  would  be  sent  from  stable 
to  stable  to  hire  the  best  barouche  he  could 
find,  and  a  span  of  horses.  Happy  the  boy 
who  selected  himself,  or  was  selected  by  des 
tiny,  to  accompany  him  on  this  tour  of  inspec 
tion  !  When  the  happy  morning  arrived 
Fullum  brought  round  his  carriage  and  horses 
early,  fastened  on  the  trunk  behind — for 
I  think  there  never  was  but  one  ;  and  the 
two  elders,  and  in  this  case  of  Cape  Ann 
the  five  children,  with  books  and  hand  bag 
gage,  always  with  maps  of  the  country, 
were  packed  away  in  and  on  the  carriage. 
Both  of  us  boys,  of  course,  sat  on  the  box 
with  Fullum,  who  drove.  If.  on  any  such 
occasion,  there  were  a  very  little  boy,  Fullum 
would  arrange  a  duplicate  set  of  reins  for  the 
special  use  of  the  youngster,  which  were 
attached,  not  to  the  horses'  bits,  but  to  the 
rings  on  the  pads.  In  this  particular  expe 
dition  to  Cape  Ann  we  stopped  at  the  Lynn 
Mineral  Spring  Hotel,  long  since  abandoned, 


THE  WORLD  NEAR  BOSTON.  185 

I  think,  and  reached  Gloucester  only  perhaps 
on  the  second  day. 

What  happened  to  the  old  people  there 
I  am  sure  I  do  not  know.  To  us  children 
there  were  those  ineffable  delights  of  playing 
with  the  ocean,  the  kindest,  safest,  and  best 
playmate  which  any  child  can  have.  Sand 
wich  had  given  us  only  the  first  taste  of  it. 
Here  we  had  our  first  real  knowledge  of  what 
sea-urchins  are,  and  what  people  call  "sand 
dollars,"  horseshoe  crabs,  cockles,  rays'  eggs, 
and  the  various  sea- weeds,  from  devil's  aprons 
up  or  down.  The  cape  had  not  assumed  the 
grandeur  of  a  summer  watering-place.  The 
modern  names  were  unknown.  There  was  no 
Rockport  or  Pigeon  Cove  to  go  to.  It  was 
Sandy  Bay  or  Squam  to  which  one  drove. 
I  remember  the  ejaculation  of  some  fisher 
men's  children,  as  they  saw  the  barouche  for 
the  first  time:  "What  is  it?  It  aint  the 
mail,  and  it  aint  a  shay." 

At  that  time,  and  certainly  as  late  as  1842, 
a  group  of  children  in  the  country,  if  they 
saw  a  carriage  approaching,  would  arrange 
themselves  hastily  in  a  line  on  one  side  of  the 


186      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

road  and  "make  their  manners."  That  is, 
they  would  all  bow  as  the  carriage  passed. 
The  last  time  that  I  remember  seeing  this  was 
in  1842,  in  Hampshire  County,  as  the  stage 
passed  by.  It  was  done  good-naturedly,  with 
no  sign  of  deference,  but  rather,  I  should  say, 
as  a  pleasant  recognition  of  human  brother 
hood  in  a  lonely  region — as  two  men,  if  they 
were  not  Englishmen,  might  bow  to  each  other, 
wherever  they  were  far  from  other  men. 

In  our  particular  family  an  annual  journey 
was  made  to  my  grandfather's  house  in  West- 
hampton,  a  pleasant  town  among  the  hills  in 
Hampshire  County,  where  my  father  was  born. 
He  took  his  wife  there  in  his  chaise  when  they 
were  married,  in  1816,  and  hardly  a  summer 
passed,  until  1837,  when  he  did  not  make  the 
same  journey  with  his  whole  family.  This 
then  numbered  seven  children,  besides  himself 
and  my  mother,  and  of  course  Fullum.  To  my 
father  it  was  a  matter  of  pride  that  on  the 
last  of  these  journeys  we  went  on  his  own  rail 
road  to  Worcester.  In  1835  the  carriage  was 
taken  on  a  truck  on  the  passenger  train,  in 
which  we  rode  ;  but  I  need  not  say  that  Fullum 


THE  WORLD   NEAR  BOSTON.  187 

preferred  to  sit  in  the  carriage  all  the  way,  and 
did  so. 

There  was  a  charm  in  such  half-vagrant 
journeying  about  which  the  Raymond  tourist 
knows  nothing.  There  was  no  sending  in 
advance  for  rooms,  and  you  took  your  chances 
at  the  tavern,  where  you  arrived,  perhaps,  at 
nine  o'clock  at  night.  It  may  be  imagined 
that  the  sudden  appearance  at  the  country 
tavern  of  a  party  of  ten,  of  all  ages  from  three 
months  upwards,  was  an  event  of  interest.  In 
those  times  the  selectmen  knew  what  they 
meant,  when  they  said  that  no  person  should 
dispense  liquor  who  did  not  provide  for  trav 
ellers.  Practically  it  was  a  convenience  to  any 
village  to  have  a  place  where  travellers  could 
stay;  and  practically  the  people  of  that  vil 
lage  said  to  the  man  whom  they  licensed  to 
sell  liquor,  "If  you  have  this  privilege,  you 
must  provide  a  decent  pl»e  of  entertainment 
for  strangers."  One  man  kept  the  tavern, 
perhaps,  for  his  life  long.  It  had  its  reputa 
tion  as  good  or  poor,  and  you  avoided  certain 
towns  because  So-and-So  did  not  keep  a  good 
house.  The  practical  difficulty  of  such  travel- 


188      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

ling  in  New  England  now,  is  that  you  are  by 
no  means  sure  of  finding  a  comfortable  place 
to  sleep  when  your  day's  journey  is  over. 
The  New  England  tavern  of  the  old  fashion 
held  its  own  to  the  most  advantage  in  later 
times  in  the  State  of  Maine,  on  the  roads  back 
into  the  lumber  region,  and  I  dare  say  such 
comfortable  houses  for  travellers  may  be  found 
there  now. 

These  country  taverns  always  had  signs, 
generally  swinging  from  a  post  with  a  cross 
bar,  in  front  of  the  house.  The  sign  might  be 
merely  the  name  of  the  keeper  ;  this  was  a  sad 
disappointment  to  young  travellers.  More 
probably  it  was  the  picture  of  the  American 
eagle  or  of  a  rising  sun.  Neptune  rising  from 
the  sea  was  a  favorite  device.  I  remember  at 
Worcester  the  Elephant.  The  portrait  of  Gen 
eral  Wolfe  still  hangs  at  the  Newburyport 
tavern,  and  there  r^lhain  some  General  Wash- 
ingtons.  After  I  was  a  man  I  had  occasion  to 
travel  a  good  deal  one  summer  in  Northern 
Vermont,  where  the  tavern  signs  still  existed. 
Almost  without  exception  their  devices  were 
of  the  American  eagle  with  his  wings  spread, 


THE  WORLD  NEAR  BOSTON. 

or  of  the  American  eagle  holding  the  English 
lion  in  chains,  or  of  the  lion  chained  without 
any  American  eagle.  These  were  in  memory 
of  Muco nib's  and  McDonough's  victories  at 
Plattsburg  and  on  the  lake.  They  also,  per 
haps,  referred  to  the  fact  that  most  of  these 
taverns  were  supported  by  the  wagons  of 
smugglers,  who,  in  their  good,  large  peddlers' 
carts,  provided  themselves  with  English  goods 
in  Canada,  which  they  sold  on  our  side  of  the 
line.  In  our  generation  one  is  more  apt  to  see 
a  tavern  sign  in  a  museum  than  hanging  on  a 
gallows-tree. 

Meandering  along  through  Leicester,  Spen 
cer,  Belchertown,  Ware,  Amherst,  North 
ampton,  or  some  of  these  places,  we  arrived 
at  my  grandfather's  pretty  home  in  West- 
hampton  on  the  morning  of  the  third  day. 
Then,  for  three  or  four  days,  came  absolute 
and  infinite  joy.  We  had  cousins  there  just 
our  own  ages  of  whom  we  were  very  fond. 
For  the  time  of  our  visit  they  gave  themselves, 
without  stint  or  hindrance,  to  the  entertain 
ment  of  their  friends  from  Boston.  First  of 
all,  horses  were  to  be  provided,  and  saddles, 


190      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

that  we  boys  might  ride.  Little  did  the 
country  boys  understand  what  joy  it  was  to  us 
to  find  ourselves  scampering  over  the  hills. 
Then  there  was  the  making  of  traps  for  wood- 
chucks.  If  it  chose  to  rain  we  were  in  the 
great  workshop  of  the  farm,  using  such  tools 
as  we  had  never  seen  at  home.  In  the  evening 
there  were  "hunt  the  slipper"  and  "blind- 
man's-buff,"  the  latter  an  entertainment  which 
we  could  follow  even  on  Sunday  evening,  as  I 
believe  I  have  said,  and  follow  then  with  more 
enthusiasm  than  on  other  evenings,  because 
other  cousins  and  the  children  of  neighbors 
came  in  to  join  with  us.  In  that  New  England 
parsonage — never  so  called,  by  the  way — the 
old  Connecticut  customs  prevailed,  and  "  the 
Sabbath"  began  promptly  as  the  sun  went 
down  on  Saturday  night,  and  was  well  ended 
when  the  sun  set  on  Sunday.  The  hills  of 
Westhampton  are  high,  and  sunset  on  Sunday 
evening  came  early. 

So  it  was  that  the  great  joy  of  life  was  the 
visit  at  grandfather's  every  summer.  My 
grandfather  was  the  minister  of  this  town  for 
fifty-seven  years.  I  think  I  saw  the  dear  old 


THE   WORLD    NEAR  BOSTON.  191 

gentleman  last  in  1834.  It  must  have  been 
in  1837,  after  his  death,  that  we  made  the  last 
visit  there,  when  my  grandmother  was  still 
living.  I  did  not  myself  return  to  West- 
hampton  for  fifty  years,  when  it  was  to  preach 
in  his  pulpit.  It  was  pleasant  to  find  that, 
after  two  generations,  the  people  of  tho  town 
remembered  him  fondly.  I  found  the  pulpit 
of  the  meeting-house  and  the  chancel  behind 
it  decorated  with  flowers,  and  the  word  "  Wel 
come,"  wrought  in  flowers,  hung  above  me. 
So  I  went  back  to  the  happiest  days  of  my 
New  England  boyhood. 

I  have  already  alluded  to  the  infrequency  of 
communication  between  this  country  home — for 
it  was  such  to  all  of  us  children — and  the  home 
in  Boston.  The  cousins  in  the  country,  when 
autumn  came,  would  not  forget  us  in  Boston, 
and  would  crack  butternuts  and  walnuts  for 
us,  of  kinds  they  thought  we  should  not  have, 
pick  out  the  great  meats,  and  pack  them  care 
fully  to  be  sent  down.  Such  a  box  would  be 
sent  to  Northampton,  and  put  on  board  a 
boat  which  went  to  Hartford.  There  it  would 
be  put  on  board  a  sloop,  in  which  it  was  to  sail 


192      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

out  of  the  Connecticut  River  and  around  Cape 
Cod  to  Boston.  In  the  same  sloop  was  perhaps 
a  keg  of  my  grandmother's  apple  sauce,  or 
some  other  treasure  from  the  farm.  Great  joy 
for  us  if  all  these  pleasant  memorials  arrived 
in  time  ;  great  sorrow  if  a  letter  came,  stating 
that  the  sloop  was  frozen  up  opposite  Lyme, 
or  somewhere  else  in  the  Connecticut  River, 
and  would  not  appear  with  its  precious  cargo 
until  the  next  spring.  Such  were  the  difficul 
ties  of  sending  a  box  one  hundred  and  ten 
miles  across  Massachusetts  in  the  year  1830. 
To  putting  an  end  to  such  difficulties  by 
the  railroad  system,  my  father  gave  much  of 
the  active  part  of  his  life,  as  I  have  before  said. 
When  it  was  thought  crazy  to  talk  about  such 
things  he  talked  about  the  possibilities  of  a 
railroad  westward.  When  it  was  necessary  to 
induce  men  of  capital  to  subscribe,  with  infi 
nite  difficulty  he  obtained  a  subscription  of 
a  million  dollars  capital  for  the  Boston  and 
Worcester  Railroad.  He  was  the  first  president 
and  first  superintendent  of  that  railroad,  and 
had  the  great  joy  of  importing  its  first  engine 
from  Liverpool.  This,  as  I  have  said,  was  the 


THE   WORLD   NEAE   BOSTON.  193 

Meteor  ;  she  was  ordered  from  George  Stephen- 
son  himself,  immediately  after  the  success  of 
the  Rocltet  in  the  famous  railway  trial  between 
Liverpool  and  Manchester  in  1830.  The  arrival 
of  the  Meteor  in  Boston,  with  the  engine- 
driver  who  was  to  set  her  up  and  to  run  her 
first  trips,  was  a  matter  of  great  joy  to  us 
boys.  At  the  same  time  the  Yankee  was  built 
by  a  company  in  Boston,  at  their  works  at 
the  cross-dam  of  the  Mill-dam  ;  and  an  engine 
always  called  the  Colonel  Long  was  built  for 
the  Boston  and  Worcester  Railroad  at  Phila 
delphia,  under  the  auspices  of  the  same  Colo 
nel  Long  who  gave  the  name  to  Long's  Peak 
at  the  West.  He  was  in  the  engineer  service 
of  the  United  States,  and  this  engine  was  built 
to  burn  anthracite  coal. 

The  Meteor  was  at  once  setup  in  Boston,  and 
started  on  her  experimental  trips.  It  is  easy 
to  see  how  much  this  would  interest  the  men 
who  had  looked  forward  to  her  success,  and, 
equally,  how  much  it  would  interest  their  sons. 
The  engine-driver  was  good  to  my  brother  and 
me,  and  we  had  the  great  pleasure  of  making 
some  of  the  earliest  of  her  trips  with  him.  I 


194      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

have  spoken  of  the  opening  of  the  road  to  West 
Newton.  I  think  they  must  still  have  there 
the  sign  which  was  put  up  on  David's  hotel, 
representing  the  engine  and  car  of  the  period. 
It  ought  to  be  preserved  in  some  historical 
collection  there.  Boston  roused  itself  to  the 
new  interest,  and  every  afternoon  eight  cars 
went  out  to  Newton  and  back,  that  people 
might  say  they  had  ridden  on  the  new  rail 
road.  Many  a  straw  hat  was  burned  through 
by  the  cinders  which  lighted  upon  it,  and  many 
notions  were  gained  for  the  future. 

What  is  now  called  the  American  system 
of  the  interior  arrangement  of  cars,  was  first 
tried  in  the  cars  built  for  the  Worcester 
Railroad  at  Worcester,  by  the  founder  of  the 
present  firm  of  Bradley.  The  suggestion 
was  made,  I  believe,  by  my  father ;  he  saw 
very  early  the  difficulty  of  the  old  system,  in 
which  the  conductor  ran  around  on  a  plat 
form  on  the  outside.  I  remember,  as  among 
the  close  approaches  to  death  which  in  any 
man's  life  stand  out  distinctly,  that,  when  I 
was  in  college,  I  ran  after  a  train  on  which  I 
was  to  go  to  Natick,  sprang  upon  it  when  in 


THE   WORLD   NEAR   BOSTON.  195 

motion,  and  felt  myself  falling.  I  supposed 
that  the  last  instant  of  my  life  had  come 
while  I  fell  for  the  first  few  inches.  Then  I 
found  myself  astride  of  the  long,  narrow  plat 
form  on  which  I  had  intended  to  stand. 
Risks  like  this  were  what  all  the  conductors 
of  the  early  railroads  ran  ;  and  I  suppose, 
indeed,  the  English  guards  may  have  to  run 
them,  to  a  certain  extent,  to  the  present  day. 

The  Boston  and  Worcester  station  in  1833, 
and  for  some  time  after,  was  on  the  ground 
now  occupied  by  Indiana  Street  and  by  Brig- 
ham's  milk  depot,  between  Washington  Street 
and  Tremont  Street.  Tremont  Street  had  just 
been  laid  out  on  the  level  of  the  salt  marshes. 
It  was  at  the  instance  of  the  Worcester  Rail 
road  that  its  grade  was  raised,  many  years 
after,  and  that  company  was  obliged  to  take 
the  cost  of  lifting  the  houses  which  had  been 
built  on  the  lower  level.  It  is  to  that  change 
of  level  that  we  owe  it  that  the  whole  South 
End  of  Boston  is  now  built  on  the  level  above 
the  marsh,  instead  of  being  built,  as  the  few 
houses  originally  on  it  were,  scarcely  above 
the  level  of  high  tide. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  WORLD    BEYOND   BOSTON. 

A  LL  boys,  from  the  nature  of  their  make- 
-£_L  up  are  great  politicians.  The  boys  of 
sixty  years  ago  were  not  unlike  boys  of  to-day 
in  this  matter,  and,  when  an  election  day  came 
around,  we  were  glad  to  spend  as  much  time 
as  we  could  at  the  places  where  people  were 
voting.  Happy  the  boy  to  whom  some  vote 
distributor  would  give  a  handful  of  votes,  and. 
happier  he  who  could  persuade  someone  to 
take  a  ballot  from  those  which  he  had  given  to 
him.  This,  by  the  way,  was  not  very  long 
after  the  time  when  a  certain  superstition  held 
in  Massachusetts  by  which  every  ballot  was 
written.  Early  in  the  century  gentlemen 
interested  in  an  election  would  call  on  the 
women  of  the  family,  if  they  could  write  well, 
to  write  out  ballots  which  could  be  used  at 
the  polls.  But  I  never  saw  such  written 
ballots. 

196 


THE   WORLD   BEYOND   BOSTON.  197 

The  separation  between  Boston  and  the  rest 
of  the  world  affected  a  good  deal  the  political 
combinations.  I  do  not  suppose  that  our 
present  compact  system  of  national  political 
parties  could  possibly  exist  without  the  con 
venience  of  the  telegraph  and  the  railroad.  I 
should  say,  historically,  that  it  began  in  the 
great  convention  of  young  men  which  was 
held  in  the  city  of  Baltimore  in  the  year  1840 
by  way  of  advancing  the  election  of  President 
Harrison.  Independent  and  sovereign  as 
Massachusetts  was  in  the  election  of  1836, 
her  National  Republicans,  as  they  called 
themselves,  nominated  Mr.  Webster  as  candi 
date  for  President,  though  nobody  else  nomi 
nated  him,  and  the  electoral  votes  of  Massa 
chusetts  were  given  for  him  and  for  Mr. 
Granger.  The  leaders  of  any  American  party 
would  hesitate  before  they  should  make  such 
a  separate  demonstration  now.  And  this  habit 
of  separation  shows  itself  more  distinctly  in 
the  newspapers  of  the  time. 

I  have  already  said  that  I  was  a  great  deal 
in  the  printing-office  of  the  Daily  Advertiser ', 
which  my  father  edited,  as  well  as  in  his  book- 


198      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

office.  He  maintained  with  care  and  interest 
the  old  system  of  apprenticeship,  and  always 
had  one  or  more  bright  boys,  whom  he  had 
taken  into  his  office  that  they  might  learn  the 
whole  art  and  mystery  of  printing  and  what 
concerned  the  publication  of  a  newspaper. 
One  of  these  young  men,  to  whose  counsels 
and  help  we  boys  were  largely  indebted,  still 
lives,  honored  in  the  community  where  he  has 
been  known  for  many  years,  as  the  director  of 
the  Barnstable  Patriot — Mr.  Sylvanus  Phin- 
ney.  To  have  a  boy  a  little  older  than  your 
self  as  your  comrade  in  the  office,  to  have  him 
show  you  what  you  could  handle  and  what 
you  could  not  handle,  was  in  itself  a  piece  of 
education. 

Mr.  Phinney  could  perhaps  tell  better  than 
I  can,  a  newspaper  story,  not  of  my  boyhood, 
but  of  girlhood  in  Boston.  In  the  year  1820 
the  convention  met  which  revised  the  con 
stitution  of  Massachusetts.  The  Advertiser 
published  the  full  report  of  the  proceedings, 
and  this  report  was  made  up  in  my  father's 
workroom,  in  the  lower  story  of  the  house  in 
Tremont  Street.  He  was  suffering  at  that 


THE   WORLD   BEYOND   BOSTON.  199 

time  from  an  accident  by  which  he  nearly  lost 
the  sight  of  one  of  his  eyes,  and  all  his  writing 
was  done  at  home  by  my  mother.  So  it 
would  happen  of  an  evening  that  the  gentle 
men  most  interested  in  the  convention  would 
look  in  at  the  house  to  revise  the  reports  of 
their  own  speeches,  and  perhaps  to  consult 
about  the  work  of  the  next  day.  Mr.  Web 
ster  and  Judge  Story  were  two  of  the  promi 
nent  leaders  of  that  convention.  They  were 
on  terms  of  the  closest  intimacy  at  our  house, 
and  would  come  in  almost  every  evening  for 
this  purpose.  Mother  would  be  sitting  in  the 
room  to  do  any  writing  which  might  be 
required,  and,  lest  she  should  be  called  away 
to  the  baby  of  the  time,  the  baby  lay  asleep 
in  the  cradle  while  the  work  of  dictation  went 
on.  Speeches  were  made,  proofs  corrected, 
baby  rocked,  and  undoubtedly  a  great  deal  of 
the  fun  of  such  bright  young  people  passed  to 
and  fro  with  every  evening. 

Afterwards,  in  friendly  recognition  of  the 
hard  night-work  of  the  winter,  when  the  con 
vention  was  well  over,  and  its  proceedings 
were  published  in  a  volume  which  is  now  one 


200      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

of  the  cherished  nuggets  of  the  collectors, 
mother  had  a  great  cake  made  for  the  work 
men  at  the  office.  She  frosted  it  herself,  and 
dressed  it  with  what  in  those  days  they  used 
to  call  "cockles"  of  sugar.  These  cockles 
generally  had  little  scraps  of  poor  verses, 
which  were  supposed  to  be  entertaining.  But 
in  this  case  she  had  cut  out  from  the  proofs 
the  epigrams  of  the  convention  debates,  and 
as  the  apprentices  and  journeymen  ate  their 
cake  they  found,  to  their  amusement,  that  the 
work  of  their  own  hands  had  furnished  what 
were  called  the  mottoes. 

The  journalist  of  to-day  thinks  he  is  much 
ahead  of  the  journalist  of  that  time,  and  in 
many  regards  he  is  ;  but  there  were  certain 
excitements  which  belonged  to  newspaper  life 
then  which  do  not  belong  to  it  now.  The  day 
when  the  Unicorn  arrived  in  Boston,  the  first  in 
the  line  of  Cunard  vessels  which  have  arrived 
regularly  from  that  day  to  this,  was  one  of 
these  exciting  days.  My  father  went  over  in 
person  upon  the  Unicorn,  talked  with  the 
officers,  and  came  back  with  English  news 
papers  almost  as  fresh  as  he  had  ever  seen.  I 


THE  WORLD  BEYOND  BOSTON.  201 

say  "  almost  as  fresh,"  because  the  passage  of 
the  Unicorn  was,  I  think,  twenty  days,  and  we 
had  traditions  in  the  office  of  rapid  runs  of 
Baltimore  clippers  or  other  fast  vessels  which 
had  come  over  in  less  time.  It  was  after  this 
that,  in  a  winter  passage,  the  Great  Western 
at  New  York  brought  news  which  was  thirty- 
five  days  later  than  the  latest  news  which  we 
had  from  Europe.  In  earlier  times  there 
would  be  many  instances  of  longer  periods 
when  neither  continent  knew  anything  of  the 
other. 

Under  such  circumstances  the  newspaper 
editor  depended  much  more  upon  his  foreign 
correspondent  than  he  does  now.  The  foreign 
correspondent  of  to-day  digests  news  of  which 
he  knows  the  details  have  already  gone  by 
telegraph.  He  is  in  some  sort  a  foreign  editor, 
but  he  does  not  expect  to  send  the  detail  of 
news.  And  there  was  an  element  of  chance 
about  the  arrival  of  sailing  vessels  which 
added  to  the  curiosity  of  your  morning  paper. 
In  our  office  Mr.  Ballard,  who  had  the  charge 
of  the  ship  news,  might  board  a  vessel  below 
in  the  harbor,  whose  captain  had  no  idea  that 


202      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

he  had  brought  the  latest  news.  Then  this 
poor  captain  would  be  beset  to  hunt  up  every 
newspaper  that  he  had  on  board.  Perhaps 
he  had  been  so  foolish  that  he  had  not  bought 
the  last  paper  of  the  day  on  which  he  started. 
Whether  he  had  or  had  not  it  was  the  busi 
ness  of  the  boat  which  boarded  him  first  to  get 
every  paper  he  had,  so  that  no  other  paper  in 
town  might  have  a  word  of  his  intelligence. 
Perhaps  all  these  papers  arrived  at  the  office 
but  a  little  while  before  you  went  to  press  ; 
then  it  was  your  business  to  make  the  best 
show  you  could  of  the  news,  and  possibly  it 
was  your  good  fortune  to  be  able  to  say  that 
no  other  paper  had  it. 

I  remember  that  we  had  the  news  of  the 
French  Revolution  of  1830,  which  threw 
Charles  X.  from  the  throne,  on  a  Sunday 
morning.  When  such  things  happened  the 
foreman  in  the  office  made  up  what  was  really 
an  "Extra"  by  throwing  together,  as  quickly 
as  he  had  them  in  type,  a  few  galleys  of  the 
news ;  in  that  case  probably  rapidly  trans 
lated  from  the  French  papers.  Then  these 
galleys  would  be  struck  off  on  a  separate 


THE   WORLD   BEYOND   BOSTON.  203 

hand-bill,  and  such  hand-bills  were  circulated 
as  "  Extras."  And  it  is  to  this  habit  that  the 
present  absurd  nomenclature  is  due  by  which 
one  buys  every  day  an  "Extra"  which  is 
published  at  a  certain  definite  time.  All  this 
is  fixed  upon  my  mind,  because,  when  I  came 
home  from  "meeting"  on  that  particular 
Sunday,  I  was  told  the  news  that  there  was 
another  revolution  in  France,  and  had  the 
"Extra"  given  me  to  carry  down  to  Summer 
Street,  where  one  of  my  uncles  lived.  There 
is  a  certain  picturesqueness  about  the  receipt 
and  delivery  of  news,  when  it  comes  in  such 
out-of-the-way  fashions,  which  the  boy  or  girl 
of  to-day  finds  it  hard  to  understand. 

Of  course  with  type  as  much  as  we  wanted, 
and  all  the  other  facilities  for  home  printing, 
we  printed  our  own  newspapers.  I  do  not 
think  that  at  our  house  we  did  it  so  much  as 
boys  would  to  whom  the  making-up  of  a  news 
paper  was  not  a  matter  of  daily  observation, 
involving  a  good  deal  of  errand  running  and 
other  work  which  was  anything  but  play. 
But  we  older  boys  had  the  Fly,  which  was  our 
newspaper,  and  my  brother  Charles,  not  long 


204      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

after,  started  the  Coon,  in  the  midst  of  the 
Harrison  campaign,  which  survived  for  a  good 
many  years. 

I  believe  that  the  last  issue  of  the  Fly  is 
that  which  records  the  death  of  Lafayette,  in 
1836.  We  had  not  type  enough  then  to  print 
more  than  one  page  at  a  time.  Three  pages  of 
the  Fly  had  been  printed,  and  the  fourth  was 
still  to  be  set  up  when  the  news  of  Lafayette's 
death  arrived.  This  was  too  good  a  para 
graph  to  be  lost,  and  we  knew  we  could  antici 
pate  every  other  paper  in  Boston  by  inserting 
it.  But  unfortunately  the  TI'S  had  given  out. 
We  had  turned  upside  down  all  the  u  's  we 
had,  till  they  too  had  given  out.  Also,  still 
more  unfortunately  for  printers  in  this  diffi 
culty,  Lafayette  had  chosen  to  die  of  an 
"influenza,"  which  disease  was  at  that 
moment  asserting  itself  under  that  name  in 
France.  It  had  not  yet  been  called  "la 
grippe,"  which  would  have  saved  us.  Wo 
succeeded  in  announcing  the  death  of  "  the 
good,  generous,  noble  Lafayette,"  although 
"generous"  needed  one  n  and  one  u,  and 
"  noble"  took  one  of  the  last  ?z's.  The  para- 


THE  WORLD  BEYOND    BOSTON.  205 

graph  went  on  to  say  that  the  death  was 
"  caused  by,"  and  the  last  u  was  devoured  by 
" caused."  Then  came  the  word  "influenza." 
"The  boldest  held  his  breath  for  a  time." 
But  we  were  obliged  ignominious! y  to  go  to 
press  with  tlio  statement  that  his  death  was 
"caused  by  a  cold."  This  was  safe,  and 
required  no  n  and  no  u.  Alas  !  in  the  mak 
ing- up  of  the  form  the  precious  n  of  the  word 
"noble"  fell  out;  and  any  library  which 
contains  a  file  of  the  Fly  will  show  that  its 
last  statement  to  the  world  is  that  "  the  good, 
generous,  oble  Lafayette  has  died  ;  his  death 
being  caused  by  a  cold."  Such  are  the  exi 
gencies  of  boy  printers  in  all  times. 

I  have  gone  into  detail  as  to  the  communica 
tions  between  the  people  in  the  country  and 
the  people  who  lived  in  Boston,  in  the  hope  of 
making  the  reader  feel  distinctly  the  isolation 
which  separated  Boston  from  the  rest  of  the 
world.  That  isolation  has  left  its  marks  on 
the  character  of  Boston  till  this  day.  It 
explains  the  amusing  cockneyisms  of  Boston 
which  make  other  people  laugh  at  us,  and  a 


206      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

certain  arrogance  of  provincialism  which  crops 
out  very  oddly  among  people  who  have  sons 
and  daughters  in  every  part  of  the  world,  and 
whose  communication  is  now  so  free  in  every 
direction.  "  In  the  beginning  it  was  not  so." 
The  people  of  Boston  had  a  very  large  foreign 
trade  from  its  origin  till  comparatively  recent 
times.  Now  they  have  a  little,  and  half  their 
population  is  of  a  stock  which  came  very 
recently  from  Europe.  But  in  the  beginning 
of  this  century  there  was  very  little  immigra 
tion  from  Europe.  Indeed,  what  there  was 
was  looked  upon  with  a  certain  distrust. 
About  the  time  I  went  to  college,  or  a  little 
later,  a  society  of  the  most  intelligent  people 
in  Boston  was  organized  for  the  express  pur 
pose  of  keeping  out  foreign  "immigration." 
We  purists  made  a  battle  against  that  word. 
Professor  Edward  Channing  would  have 
resented  the  use  of  it  in  a  college  theme  with 
the  same  bitterness  with  which  Mr.  Webster 
resented  "  in  our  midst" — a  phrase  which,  I  am 
sorry  to  say,  you  may  now  find  almost  every 
where.  One  of  the  most  Intelligent  gentle 
men  in  Boston  was  appointed  to  the  business 


THE  WORLD  BEYOND  BOSTON.  207 

of  keeping  out  immigrants— a  business  which 
can  only  be  compared  to  Mrs.  Partington's 
determination  to  sweep  out  the  tide  when  it 
was  rising  in  the  English  Channel !  He  had 
his  office  on  Long  Wharf,  and  wrote  and  for 
warded  circulars  to  Ireland  to  explain  to  the 
people  of  Ireland  that  they  had  better  not 
come  to  this  country.  At  the  same  moment 
the  very  people  who  paid  his  salary  were 
building  up  a  system  of  manufacturing  and 
internal  improvements  which  was  actually 
impossible  without  the  immigration  which 
they  had  appointed  him  to  check. 

There  was  at  that  time,  however,  a  distinct 
determination  on  the  part  of  the  best  people  in 
Boston  that  it  should  be  absolutely  a  model 
city.  They  had  Dr.  Channing  preaching  the 
perfectibility  of  human  nature  ;  they  had  Dr. 
Joseph  Tuckerman  determined  that  the  gospel 
of  Jesus  Christ  should  work  its  miracles 
among  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men  ;  they 
had  a  system  of  public  education  which  they 
meant  to  press  to  its  very  best ;  and  they  had 
all  the  money  which  was  needed  for  anything 
good.  These  men  subscribed  their  money 


208  A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

with  the  greatest  promptness  for  any  enter 
prise  which  promised  the  elevation  of  human 
society. 

In  speaking  of  the  lecture  system  I  have 
already  stated  their  notion  that  if  people  only 
knew  what  was  right  they  would  do  what  was 
right.  So  they  founded  first  the  Massa 
chusetts  Hospital,  then  its  annex  for  the 
insane ;  then  they  made  the  State  contribute 
to  the  deaf  and  dumb  asylum  in  Hartford ; 
they  established  their  asylum  for  the  blind 
at  South  Boston.  Indeed,  they  expected  to 
trample  out  every  human  ill,  exactly  as  the 
most  optimistic  young  medical  expert  in  New 
York  at  the  moment  when  I  write  these  lines 
expects  to  trample  out  every  cholera  bacillus 
who  shall  present  its  little  head  in  sight  of 
the  lens  of  the  most  powerful  microscope. 
What  these  excellent  people  might  have  done 
had  Boston  remained  the  funny  little  town  it 
was  in  the  year  1820  I  do  not  know.  But  it 
did  not  remain  any  such  place.  The  popula 
tion  was  then  43,298  ;  in  1830  it  was  61,392. 
The  increase  in  ten  years  is  forty-one  per  cent 
of  the  population  at  the  first  enumeration — 


THE   WORLD   BEYOND    BOSTON.  209 

an  increase  which  would  be  thought  very 
remarkable  in  the  growth  of  any  old  city  now. 
It  indicates  great  prosperity.  In  the  same 
ten  years  the  population  of  the  city  of  New 
York  increased  from  123,706  to  202,589,  an 
increase  of  sixty-four  per  cent.  Such  figures 
should  be  remembered,  by  the  way,  by  people 
who  tell  us  that  the  present  rate  of  the 
increase  of  cities  is  without  precedent. 

The  growth,  though  rapid,  and  on  the  whole 
encouraging  for  the  manufacturing  system  of 
New  England,  tended  to  divert  capital  to  a 
certain  extent  from  that  foreign  commerce 
which  had  been  created  and  nourished  by 
European  wars.  So  soon  as  capital  placed 
itself  in  one  or  another  site  of  the  interior,  as 
Lowell,  Manchester,  Fall  River,  Holyoke,  and 
the  rest  came  into  existence,  so  soon,  of  course, 
the  Boston  boy  found  out  that  there  was  a 
world  outside  of  State  Street  and  Milk  Street. 
And  now  that  Boston  capital  loves  to  place 
itself  at  any  point  where  capital  is  needed, 
between  Lockwood's  Cape  in  82°  north  lati 
tude  and  Terra  del  Fuego  on  the  outside  of 
the  Strait  of  Magellan,  there  is  no  longer  an 


210       A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

opportunity  for  a  Boston  boyhood  to  be  spent 
in  the  conditions  which  surrounded  me. 
These  were  physically  almost  the  same  as 
those  which  surrounded  the  boyhood  of 
Samuel  Sewall  in  the  seventeenth  century,  or 
Henry  Knox  in  the  eighteenth. 


CHAPTEK  IX. 

AT   COLLEGE. 

I  WAS  but  thirteen  years  and  five  months 
old  when  I  entered  Harvard  College, 
so  that  these  memories  of  a  New  England 
boyhood  carry  us  into  college  life.  For  as 
early  an  entrance  as  this  was  not  unusual 
in  those  days.  My  friend  Dr.  Andrew  Pres 
ton  Peabody  entered  college  as  sophomore 
in  his  thirteenth  year — at  the  precise  age 
of  twelve  years  and  six  months ;  Edward 
Everett,  twenty  years  before,  entered  at  the 
age  of  thirteen.  The  first  scholar  of  my  own 
class,  Samuel  Eliot,  afterward  president  of 
Trinity  College,  was  but  a  few  months  older 
than  I.  I  think  we  were  the  two  youngest 
members  of  the  class. 

I  have  no  idea  that  my  father  would  have 
sent  me  to  college  so  young  but  that  my  older 
brother  was  already  there.  We  had  always 
been  together,  and  were  absolutely  attached 

211 


212  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

to  each  other.  In  point  of  fact,  at  this 
moment,  I  should  find  it  hard  to  think  of  any 
real  knowledge  of  any  sort  which  I  have  ever 
had,  on  any  subject,  of  which  I  did  not  trace 
the  "origins"  to  him.  I  suppose  my  father 
thought  that  he  was  the  best  adviser  and 
instructor  that  I  could  have.  Certainly  he 
could  not  have  sent  me  to  Europe  with  any 
private  tutor,  with  nearly  the  advantage 
which  I  received  from  being  sent  to  Cam 
bridge  to  live  with  my  brother.  Accordingly 
to  Cambridge  I  was  sent,  although  everybody 
knew  that  this  was  at  a  younger  age  than 
would  be  otherwise  advisable.  I  should  not 
certainly  advise  any  one  to  send  a  boy  to 
Cambridge  at  thirteen  years  of  age  now, 
though  I  believe  there  would  be  no  difficulty 
in  passing  the  Cambridge  examinations  at  that 
age  now,  if  a  boy  had  been  sensibly  brought 
up,  by  teachers  who  understood  what  that 
examination  is  and  is  not.  But  the  college 
was  not  then  what  it  is  now,  and  life  after  one 
left  college  was  not  quite  what  it  is  now.  I 
have  certainly  never  regretted  that  after  I 
left  college  I  had  six  clear  years  for  seeing  the 


AT  COLLEGE.  213 

world,  before  there  was  even  an  apparent 
necessity  of  my  binding  myself  to  the  regular 
work  of  my  profession.  Now  this  could 
hardly  have  been  had  I  entered  college  at  the 
age  of  sixteen  or  seventeen,  which  was,  I  sup 
pose,  the  age  of  most  of  my  classmates. 

It  must  have  been  on  a  morning  in  the  end 
of  August  that  this  brother  of  mine  and  I 
started  together,  in  my  uncle's  "chaise," 
which  had  been  borrowed  for  the  occasion, 
that  I  might  present  myself  at  six  o'clock  at 
University  Hall  for  examination.  The  exami 
nations  are  absurd  enough  now,  but  I  think 
they  do  not  make  them  begin  at  six  in  the 
morning.  At  that  time,  however,  morning 
prayers  were  at  six  o'clock  as  soon  as  the  term 
began,  and  it  was  considered  proper  that  we 
should  be  introduced  into  the  college  routine 
at  the  beginning. 

The  examination  was  to  last  from  six  in  the 
morning  to  seven  in  the  evening  on  that  day, 
and  from  six  till  two  on  the  next  day ;  and 
with  the  exception  of  an  hour  for  dinner  we 
were  kept  in  the  various  recitation  rooms  all 
the  time.  After  two  on  the  second  day  we 


214      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

loafed  round  the  yard,  keeping  near  enough 
to  the  door  of  University  Hall  to  know  when 
we  were  called,  one  by  one.  Each  person  as 
he  was  called  then  entered  what  we  after 
wards  called  the  "corporation  room,"  where, 
he  found  the  president  and  members  of  the 
faculty,  and  each  one  received  the  announce 
ment  of  his  success  or  of  his  failure.  You 
were  admitted  on  probation,  as  it  was  called, 
there  being  a  theory  that  you  were  not  matric 
ulated  until  the  end  of  the  first  term.  But 
we  all  knew  that  everybody  who  was  admitted 
was  matriculated  ;  and  this  was  merely  one  of 
a  set  of  traditional  forms  of  which  I  will 
speak  in  another  place. 

I  rather  think  that  I  derived  a  certain  con 
tempt  which  I  have  always  felt  for  these 
mechanical  functions  called  examinations 
from  my  experience  on  this  occasion.  As  it 
happened,  my  brother  and  I  arrived,  in  the 
chaise  alluded  to.  early  enough  indeed,  but 
later  than  the  great  body  of  the  candidates,  of 
whom  there  were  about  eighty.  For  instance, 
my  own  classmates  of  the  Latin  School  had 
come  out  in  an  omnibus,  which  had  been 


AT   COLLEGE.  215 

engaged  to  come  at  that  early  hour.  We 
found,  therefore,  that  they  were  already  regis 
tered  on  the  list  of  applicants,  while  my  name 
came  in  at  the  very  end,  with  certain  other 
boys  who  had  arrived  separately.  It  is  an 
illustration  of  the  simplicity  of  those  days 
that  one  of  these  boys  at  least  had  ridden 
twenty  miles  that  morning,  with  his  father, 
in  the  chaise  in  which  they  had  come  from 
Berwick  in  Maine.  This  was  Francis  Brown 
Hayes  ;  his  place  in  the  alphabet  brought  him 
next  to  me  in  all  the  lists  of  our  class,  and  we 
were  intimate  friends  till  the  end  of  his  life. 
Samuel  Longfellow,  who  has  lately  died,  was 
another  of  these  sporadic  persons  ;  he  had 
come  with  his  father  in  a  chaise  from  Port 
land  in  Maine,  by  a  two  days'  journey. 

We  were  told  off  into  twelve  sections,  and 
proceeded  to  the  examination.  It  was  on 
much  the  same  lines  on  which  the  examina 
tion  is  conducted  now,  with  perhaps  less  of 
writing  and  more  oral  questions.  There  was, 
however,  no  examination  in  French  or  in 
German.  I  think  the  Latin  and  Greek  and 
mathematics  went  as  far  as  the  required 


216      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

examination  does  now ;  but  if  a  person 
wanted  to  enter  in  advance  lie  presented  him 
self  on  another  day.  In  every  class  there 
were  a  great  many  persons  in  those  days 
who  "entered  sophomore,"  as  the  phrase  was. 
That  is  to  say,  the  course  was  abridged  to 
three  years  by  these  boys  who  had  remained 
for  two  freshman  years  in  the  preparatory 
school.  I  believe  that  the  persons  most  com 
petent  in  the  university  are  very  glad  to  have 
some  such  course  as  this  taken  now  ;  it  is  an 
easy  way  of  solving  the  question  whether  the 
undergraduate  course  should  be  three  years  or 
four,  and  how  much  work  should  be  thrown 
upon  the  preparatory  schools. 

I  afterwards  knew  as  teachers  most  of  the 
gentlemen  who  conducted  that  examination. 
But  there  was  one  of  them,  who  assigned  us 
our  places,  gave  us  all  general  directions,  and, 
in  short,  looked  after  us  through  the  two  days 
in  the  kindest  manner  possible,  whom  I  did 
not  meet  again  for  many  years.  I  now  think 
it  was  Theodore  Parker,  whom  I  did  not  know 
personally  till  long  after  this  time.  I  have 
ever  since  liked  to  think  of  him  as  showing 


AT  COLLEGE.  217 

such  friendly  sympathy  and  untiring  con 
sideration  for  the  needs  of  seventy  or  eighty 
dazed  and  bewildered  boys. 

To  us  Latin  School  boys  the  examination  was 
easy  enough  in  most  of  its  details.  I  know  I 
went  to  it,  and  through  it,  with  the  light- 
hearted  spirit  in  which  it  is  best  to  meet  life 
always,  taking  it  for  granted,  that  is,  that  I 
was  at  least  equal  to  the  average,  and  that, 
with  good  luck,  I  should  come  out  better  than 
the  average.  There  was  not  one  of  us  who  had 
the  slightest  idea  that  he  should  not  pass  the 
examination.  In  fact,  the  only  question  I 
remember  is  the  question  whether  Amster 
dam  were  north  of  London  ;  this  was  put  to  a 
dozen  or  more  of  us,  in  a  good-natured,  friendly 
way,  by  George  F.  Simmons,  afterwards  an 
interesting  and  valuable  preacher.  Every  one 
of  the  twelve  answered  the  question  wrong. 
We  were  not,  however,  conditioned  on  geogra 
phy,  although  I  do  not  remember  that  any 
other  questions  were  put  to  me  than  this,  on 
which  I  came  out  so  badly. 

When  the  examination  was  over  it  proved 
that  but  six  of  the  eighty  had  passed  "without 


218      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

conditions"  ;  that  was  the  phrase  then,  as  I 
think  it  is  now.  Rather  to  the  disgust  and 
mortification  of  the  five  best  scholars  of  our 
Latin  School  class,  they  were  all  conditioned. 
They  were  the  five  highest  of  the  six  Franklin 
Medal  boys,  and  a  Franklin  medal  is  a  type  of 
the  highest  scholarship  in  a  Boston  school. 
Perkins,  who  was  the  sixth  Franklin  Medal 
boy,  and  I,  who  never  had  a  Franklin  medal, 
were  the  two  from  our  school  who  passed  with 
out  any  conditions.  I  am  disposed,  as  I  say, 
to  think  that  to  this  accident — for  it  was  a 
mere  accident — I  owe  the  suspicion  which  I 
entertained  as  early  as  that  period  of  my  life 
that  all  these  examinations  are  in  a  large 
measure  humbugs.  The  persistence  in  them 
is  one  of  the  follies  of  our  time,  which  will 
drop  out,  as  various  other  follies  drop  oiit, 
from  one  generation  after  another.  It  seems 
to  belong  where  patches  on  a  lady's  face 
belong,  or  similar  customs,  which  one  age 
thinks  important  and  another  age  laughs  at. 
Of  course  I  went  home  very  light-hearted,  not 
to  say  proud  ;  and  from  that  day  to  this  day 
I  have  never  dreaded  any  of  these  formal  f  unc- 


AT  COLLEGE.  219 

tions,  in  whatever  shape  they  have  presented 
themselves.  I  am  glad  to  think  that  my  chil 
dren  have  inherited  something  of  the  same 
light-hearted  readiness  to  accept,  without  pro 
test,  any  folly  of  the  time,  so  it  do  not  involve 
an  essential  principle. 

But  when  the  business  of  actually  going  to 
college  began  I  had  none  of  this  light-hearted 
feeling.  It  was  all  very  pleasant  to  go  around 
with  Fullum  to  furniture  stores,  with  money 
enough  to  buy  the  chairs,  and  carpet,  and 
washbowl,  and  other  apparatus  with  which 
one  was  to  begin  independent  life.  It  was 
interesting  to  go  out  with  him  to  22  Stoughton, 
and  assist  in  putting  the  carpet  down,  in  hang 
ing  the  curtains,  and  in  determining  where  my 
desk  should  be,  and  where  my  brother's  should 
be,  and  so  in  beginning  upon  house-keeping. 
But  when  all  this  was  over,  when  I  had  been 
to  morning  prayers  for  the  first  time,  and  had 
gone  through  the  routine  of  morning  recita 
tions,  and  the  first  recitation  of  the  afternoon 
—recitations  which  were  all  child's  play  to 
boys  who  had  been  as  well  trained  as  we — 
when  I  sat  in  the  broad  window  seat,  and 


220      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

looked  out  on  the  setting  sun,  behind  Mount 
Auburn,  as  it  happened,  then  the  bitterness 
of  the  situation  revealed  itself  to  me.  I  was 
thoroughly  and  completely  homesick. 

I  said  to  myself,  perhaps  I  said  aloud, 
"  This  is  one  day  of  three  hundred  and  sixty- 
five,  and  that  will  make  one  year.  At  the  end 
of  that  year  I  shall  have  gone  through  one  of 
four  such  years."  And  I  wondered  how  I 
ever  could  survive  the  deadly  monotony  of  such 
a  service.  It  was  not  till  the  next  year  that  I 
read,  in  Miss  Martineau's  "Travels,"  thathappy 
anecdote  of  the  Jersey  apprentice  boy,  who, 
when  nine  years  old,  was  forever  wishing  for 
the  Fourth  of  July.  Some  one  asked  him  why 
he  was  so  eager  to  have  the  Fourth  of  July 
come,  and  he  said:  "When  that  has  come  I 
shall  have  only  eleven  more  years  to  serve." 
I  repeat  this  tale  of  homesickness  because, 
although  it  was  an  exaggerated  feeling,  it 
expresses  well  enough  my  dislike  for  the  rou 
tine  of  college,  a  dislike  which  accompanied 
me  to  its  very  close.  Other  fellows  took  the 
thing  more  simply  and  philosophically.  New 
ton,  of  my  own  class,  a  fine  fellbw  who  died 


AT  COLLEGE. 

young,  said  to  me  once  that  he  attended  every 
chapel  exercise,  morning  and  evening  through 
the  whole  time  he  was  in  Cambridge.  "  Why 
should  I  not?"  he  said.  "I  had  not  the 
attractions  which  you  had  in  Boston  ;  Cam 
bridge  was  my  home.  The  rule  was  to  be  in 
chapel  twice  a  day  ;  I  might  as  well  be  there 
as  anywhere  else."  He  was  undoubtedly  the 
happier  and,  I  think,  the  better  man,  because 
he  could  accept  the  routine  of  life  with  such 
good  nature. 

As  for  the  business  which  took  us  to  college, 
more  than  half  of  us  soon  found  out  that  we 
had  been  too  well  prepared.  As  Hayward 
used  to  say,  "  We  had  overrun  the  game." 
That  is  the  great  merit  of  the  elective  system, 
if  it  holds  in  the  freshman  year  of  a  college — 
that  a  boy  or  young  man  can  take  hold  where 
he  is  prepared  to  go  forward.  For  us,  how 
ever,  we  were  set  on  reading  Livy  and  Xen- 
ophon.  These  authors  are  easier  after  you 
have  "the  hang  of  it"  than  the  Latin  and 
Greek  which  we  had  been  reading  for  some 
time  before  at  school.  We  could  almost  read 
them  at  sight.  Our  teachers  in  these  two 


222      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

languages  regarded  the  whole  thing  as  a  bore  ; 
they  were  preparing  for  other  fields  in  life, 
and  they  had  taken  their  tutorships  by  the 
way,  without  any  idea  that  they  were  to  inter 
est  us  in  language  or  that  there  was  much 
interest  in  it ;  at  least  that  is  the  impression 
which  they  left  upon  our  minds.  It  was 
simply  a  dull  school  exercise.  It  may  be  said 
in  passing  that  one  of  the  great  difficulties 
of  our  present  college  system  comes  from 
the  fact  that  in  general  boys,  for  the  last  year 
they  are  in  the  preparatory  school,  have  been 
under  the  care  of  a  gentleman  of  spirit, 
and  intelligence,  and  eagerness  in  educa 
tion,  who  makes  them  his  companions,  who 
gives  them  such  enthusiasm  as  he  has  in  the 
studies  which  they  are  pursuing.  For  then 
they  pass  into  the  hand  of  some  instructor 
who  has  just  graduated,  who  does  not  know 
much,  and  very  likely  does  not  know  how  to 
teach  what  he  knows.  From  a  superior,  picked 
man,  one  of  the  best  educators  in  the  country, 
perhaps,  a  boy  passes  under  the  direction  of 
a  frightened  novice,  with  whom  the  college  is 
trying  an  experiment  whether  he  will  or  will 


AT  COLLEGE.  223 

not  succeed.  Of  course,  in  theory,  the  best 
educators  ought  to  have  the  charge  of  those 
pupils  who  need  education  most.  But  in 
practice,  I  fancy,  it  is  very  hard,  in  the  charge 
of  colleges,  to  make  the  professors  of  most 
ability  take  those  elementary  duties  upon 
themselves.  Certainly  in  very  few  colleges  do 
they  take  any  such  duty. 

In  the  business  of  mathematics  the  whole 
thing  was  different.  I  find  by  the  Quinquen 
nial  Catalogue  that  Professor  Peirce,  now  well 
known  as  one  of  the  most  distinguished  math 
ematicians  of  the  century,  was  appointed  two 
years  before  this  time  as  Hollis  Professor  of 
Mathematics.  He  was  but  twenty-six  years  of 
age.  It  has  been  the  custom  to  say  that  he 
was  not  a  good  teacher  of  mathematics,  because 
his  insight  was  so  absolute  that  he  made  one 
long  step  where  a  pupil  needed  to  make  four 
or  five,  and  that  he  could  not  understand  the 
difficulty  of  the  boy  who  did  not  see  what  he 
saw.  I  suppose  this  is  true  ;  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  was  an  enthusiast  in  his  business, 
he  was  sympathetic  and  kind  where  he  saw 
real  interest  in  the  pupil,  and  he  devised  the 


224  A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

best  method  for  the  handling  of  a  class  which 
I  have  ever  seen.  In  his  case,  certainly,  there 
was  no  right  to  complain  that  an  inferior 
teacher  was  put  in  charge  of  novices.  At  two 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon  we  went  into  one  of 
the  large  dining-rooms  of  University  Hall, 
which  was  not  needed  for  commons.  As  one 
went  into  the  room  he  took  from  a  pile  of 
manuscript  books  his  own  book,  as  he  had  left 
it  the  day  before.  In  this  book  he  found  a 
slip  of  paper  with  the  problem  of  geometry 
which  he  was  to  work  out  that  day.  Now  if 
he  had  failed  the  day  before  the  problem 
given  him  would  be  one  on  the  lesson  of  the 
day  before ;  if  he  had  not  failed  it  would  take 
him  on  in  the  regular  order. 

Of  course  it  happened,  before  many  weeks 
were  over,  that  the  different  members  of  the 
class  were  in  different  places  ;  but  it  also  was 
sure,  that  nobody  had  been  advanced  any 
farther  than  he  had  understood  what  he  was 
about.  In  point  of  fact,  only  six  or  eight 
members  of  the  class  went  through  without 
any  failures  at  all,  and  the  others  straggled 
along  in  their  places  behind.  If  you  had  any 


AT  COLLEGE.  225 

real  hitch,  and  did  not  understand  the  thing, 
you  were  encouraged  in  every  way  to  sit  down 
by  Mr.  Peirce  and  work  out  the  problem  with 
him.  We  came  to  be,  from  that  very  moment 
forward,  on  terms  of  a  certain  sort  of  intimacy 
with  him,  which  did  not  exist  with  five  other 
teachers  in  college.  He  was  very  cordial  and 
sympathetic,  if  anybody  used  his  own  brains 
enough  to  work  out  the  problem  in  a  way  dif 
ferent  from  that  in  the  book  ;  and  I  doubt  if  I 
have  ever  received  any  honor  in  life  which  I 
prized  more  than  the  words  "excellent  and 
original,"  which  once  or  twice  he  wrote  at  the 
bottom  of  my  exercise.  Probably  I  hardly 
need  say  that  this  sort  of  intimacy  led  to  a 
cordial  friendship  between  him  and  me,  which 
lasted  till  the  very  end  of  his  distinguished 
life. 

But  there  is  a  queer  thing  about  this  recita 
tion  with  him,  which  shows  the  absolute  indif 
ference  of  the  American  world  of  the  first  half 
of  this  century  to  matters  of  physical  health. 
When,  in  the  year  before,  Francis  Lieber  was 
intrusted  with  the  preparation  of  the  funda 
mental  rules  for  Grirard  College,  he  prepared  a 


226      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

curious  code  of  such  rules,  in  which  he  made 
this  his  Article  227  : 

No  scientific  instruction  proper  should  be  given 
within  a  full  hour  after  dinner.  The  contrary  leads  to 
vice. 

In  utter  indifference  to  any  such  rule  as 
this — probably  in  utter  ignorance  that  there 
was  any  connection  between  body  and  mind 
worth  notice — our  whole  class  was  ordered 
into  this  mathematical  exercise  at  two  o'clock, 
after  we  had  dined  at  a  dinner  beginning  at 
one.  It  was  not  till  five  years  afterwards  that 
I  stumbled  on  Lieber's  axiom,  which  is  based 
on  absolute  experience  ;  and  I  think  one  may 
doubt  whether  anybody  at  Cambridge  cared 
whether  there  were  any  such  axiom  or  not. 
Take,  for  another  instance,  the  morning  recita 
tions.  We  went  into  chapel  at  six,  to  a  per 
functory  service  which  lasted  rather  less  than 
ten  minutes.  Half  the  class  then  went  at  once 
into  a  recitation — whatever  happened  to  be 
convenient — although  breakfast  was  not  to  be 
served  until  twenty  minutes  past  seven.  All 
through  the  college  year  this  same  distance  be 
tween  breakfast  and  prayers  prevailed  ;  what 


AT   COLLEGE.  227 

was  called  the  "half -hour  bell"  being  rung 
half  an  hour  after  prayers  were  over,  so  that 
some  sections  went  in  then,  as  some  sections 
had  gone  in  immediately  on  the  close  of 
chapel.  The  absolute  wickedness  of  working 
the  brains  of  boys  who  had  taken  no  food  per 
haps  since  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  before, 
did  not  seem  to  occur  to  a  human  being  in  the 
administration. 

My  friend  the  late  Dr.  Muzzey,  who  was  in 
college  a  dozen  years  before  me,  told  me  that, 
until  he  was  a  senior  in  college,  nobody  had 
ever  told  him  that  students  ought  to  take 
physical  exercise  daily.  He  told  me  that  he 
lived  in  the  college  yard,  at  work  on  his  stud 
ies,  day  in  and  day  out,  without  thinking  that 
physical  exercise  was  necessary  for  any  reason, 
and  that  nobody  told  him  that  it  was.  It  was 
not  till  he  broke  down,  in  a  confirmed  dyspep 
sia,  from  the  results  of  which  he  suffered  till 
the  end  of  his  days,  that  some  physician 
explained  to  him  that  he  ought  to  have  taken 
some  physical  exercise  every  day  of  his  life. 
It  was  true  that  Dr.  John  Ware,  a  person 
eminently  fit  for  the  duty,  delivered  lectures 


228      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

on  the  art  of  preserving  health,  to  which  we 
were  obliged  to  go  in  our  senior  year.  But 
the  joke  was  that  we  did  not  go  till  our  con 
stitutions  were  destroyed. 

Through  the  freshman  and  sophomore  years 
it  was  impossible  for  any  boy  of  more  than 
average  training  and  sense  to  spend  more  than 
three  hours  a  day  in  preparing  for  recitations. 
Lectures,  observe,  were  almost  wholly  unknown 
in  those  years.  Then  the  college  required 
three  hours  of  recitation, — on  some  rare  occa 
sion  possibly  four.  Here  were  six  hours 
taken  up  by  studies  of  the  university.  Sup 
posing  you  slept  nine  hours  out  of  the  twenty- 
four  (and  I  certainly  did)  here  were  nine  hours 
to  be  got  rid  of  in  amusement  of  whatever 
kind,  where  we  were  absolutely  our  own 
masters.  The  requisition  was  simply  that  we 
should  attend  these  recitations  and  chapel 
twice  a  day.  In  the  summer  half  of  the  year 
chapel  was  at  six  in  the  morning,  as  I  have 
said.  As  the  sun  began  to  rise  later  than  six, 
the  chapel  was  pushed  forward  so  that  the 
exercises  might  be  carried  on  by  daylight,  for 
it  had  been  proved,  by  sad  experience,  that  the 


AT   COLLEGE.  229 

undergraduates  took  measures  to  put  out  the 
candles  on  which  the  chapel  then  depended 
for  its  light,  if  there  were  not  light  from  the 
heavenly  bodies.  Given  these  requisitions, 
we  might  do  as  we  chose  for  the  rest  of  the 
time. 

For  many  of  us — certainly  for  me — a  con 
siderable  part  of  this  time  was  used  in  the 
library.  The  library  then  consisted  of  about 
fifty  thousand  volumes,  which  occupied  the 
second  story  of  Harvard  Hall.  With  perhaps 
twenty  exceptions  every  one  of  these  books 
might  be  taken  down  by  every  comer  and  read, 
so  only  he  remained  in  the  library  while  read 
ing.  I  think  Mr.  Emerson  refers  somewhere 
to  the  facility  thus  given  and  to  the  use  of  it, 
as  the  best  advantage  which  a  college  has  to 
offer.  I  remember  that  there  was  a  proposal 
made  once  that  he  should  reside  in  Cambridge, 
with  a  college  appointment,  as  director  of  the 
reading  of  the  undergraduates.  Without  any 
director  or  direction  we  browsed  over  the  whole 
range  of  English  literature,  and,  when  we  could, 
dipped  into  other  languages.  I  wonder,  when 
I  look  back  on  the  miscellaneous  reading  of 


230  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

those  days,  that  even  two  or  three  hours  a  day 
gave  time  for  it.  But,  practically,  when  you 
had  nothing  else  to  do  between  ten  and  four, 
you  went  into  the  library.  You  sat  at  the 
great  table,  where  was  Rees's  Cyclopaedia,  and 
you  read  the  articles  which  you  fancied  or 
needed.  You  worked  up  your  themes  and 
forensics  there.  For  me,  I  know  I  dipped 
through  the  Gentleman's  Magazine,  from 
1720  down.  I  remember  reading  the  folios  of 
adventure  on  the  North-west  coast,  so  that  ten 
years  afterwards  I  was  not  unprepared  for 
Sntter,  the  Sacramento,  the  wreck  of  the 
Peacock,  and  the  discovery  of  gold.  It  had, 
in  fact,  been  discovered  by  Shelvocke  in  1718. 
For  home  reading,  that  is,  reading  in  our 
rooms,  we  had  the  society  libraries.  All  this 
has  changed  since  you  can  buy  a  paper-cov 
ered  novel  for  ten  cents.  The  society  assess 
ments  were  not  large — perhaps  two  dollars  a 
year.  For  sixty  members  this  gave  an  income 
of  one  hundred  and  twenty  dollars,  to  be  spent 
on  the  two-volume  novel  of  the  period,  gener 
ally  in  Carey  &  Lea's  Philadelphia  reprint. 
Cooper's  later  novels,  James's  novels,  Mrs. 


AT   COLLEGE.  231 

Trollope's,  Mrs.  Gore's,  and  plenty  more,  of 
which  names  and  authors  are  now  forgotten, 
were  regularly  bought  and  ready  for  distribu 
tion  at  our  mutual  circulating  libraries.  The 
first  of  Dickens' s  came  in  my  time,  and  Bulwer 
still  held  the  field.  I  and  my  brother  were 
entitled  to  four  such  novels  a  week — eight 
volumes.  I  doubt  if  I  averaged  more  than 
four  volumes  a  week.  But  I  am  sure  I  read  as 
many  as  that,  and  I  think  they  did  me  much 
more  good  than  hurt.  The  novelists  of  that 
day  did  their  best  in  conversation,  and  for 
care  in  conversation  I  doubt  if  there  is  better 
training  than  the  reading  of  good  novels  of 
that  school.  Of  course  we  went  back  to  the 
older  books.  Scott  still  reigned  supreme.  I 
knew  Miss  Austen  by  heart,  almost,  and  we 
read  everything  else  which  the  law  of  selection 
had  preserved. 

The  necessity  of  these  libraries — a  necessity 
which  no  longer  exists — kept  the  literary  soci 
eties  alive.  The  clubs,  like  the  Hasty  Pudding 
and  the  Porcellian,  were  a  different  thing ; 
they  had  their  libraries  also. 

The   I.  0.  H.  and   the   Institute   were  the 


232      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

freshman  and  sophomore  societies  —  the 
Union  and  the  Hasty  Pudding  came  later. 
There  was  the  slightest  possible  pretence  of 
rivalry  between  the  societies  of  the  Institute 
and  the  I.  0.  H.,  but  it  amounted  to  nothing. 
In  practice  each  society  met  once  a  fortnight, 
and  the  Tuesdays  of  meetings  alternated  with 
each  other.  In  each  society  the  exercises 
began  with  a  lecture,  so  called,  which  lasted 
five  or  ten  minutes.  You  had  to  get  up  some 
subject,  and  make  it  as  interesting  as  you 
could,  and  read  it  to  the  assembled  thirty  or 
forty  fellows.  Then  there  was  a  debate,  to 
which  two  or  three  speakers  were  assigned  on 
the  affirmative,  and  two  or  three  on  the  nega 
tive.  The  fellows  sat  round  the  tables,  which 
were  built  into  the  floor,  for  use  when  they 
should  be  needed  in  commons,  and,  after  the 
regular  speakers,  anybody  might  join  in  the 
discussion.  The  discussions  were  of  course  as 
good  and  as  bad  as  the  discussions  of  boys 
generally  are.  But  we  were  all  trained  by 
them  to  think  on  our  feet,  and  all  learned 
there  to  stand  without  our  knees  shaking 
under  us,  and  that  is  the  great  thing  to  be 


AT  COLLEGE.  233 

learned.  For  the  rest,  if  a  man  has  anything 
to  say  he  will  be  very  apt  to  find  out  how  to 
say  it. 

I  am  always  sorry  when  I  hear  of  any 
college  that  there  is  no  interest  in  debating 
societies.  Somehow  or  other  you  want  to 
have  Americans  used  to  face  an  audience,  and 
to  tell  the  truth  in  as  simple  a  way  as  it  can 
be  told ;  and  I  know  of  no  training  so  good 
for  this  as  that  of  the  debating  club.  I  am 
glad  to  see  that,  under  the  auspices  of  the 
Lyceum  League,  there  is  a  chance  that  the 
old-fashioned  debating  club  may  be  revived. 

Once  or  twice  a  year  there  was  a  more 
formal  function  in  society  life.  You  cele 
brated  Washington's  birthday,  or  something 
else  which  it  was  convenient  to  celebrate,  by 
an  oration  and  a  poem.  Then  you  invited  the 
members  of  the  other  societies  to  come  in. 

The  Davy  Club  had  been  in  existence  some 
years,  under  one  and  another  name,  before 
my  day,  and  had  the  north-east  corner  room  in 
the  basement  of  Massachusetts  for  a  labora 
tory.  Dr.  Webster,  who  was  the  professor  of 
chemistry,  gave  us  the  most  good-natured  and 


234      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

kindly  assistance.  Many  a  bit  of  old  appara 
tus,  for  which  substitutes  had  been  found  in 
the  college  laboratory,  was  transferred  for  our 
use  ;  and  we  might,  at  any  moment,  run  over 
to  him  for  advice  or  information.  We  had 
quite  a  little  store  of  chemicals,  and,  on  the 
whole,  the  facilities  of  the  Davy  laboratory 
were  so  much  better  than  those  which  we 
could  concoct  in  our  own  wash  basins  and 
what  were  called  the  "studies" — the  little 
closets  by  the  sides  of  our  chimney-places 
— that  we  ordinarily  stained  our  trousers  and 
our  fingers  in  that  laboratory  rather  than  in 
our  own  rooms. 

In  my  senior  year  a  dramatic  event  crossed 
the  deadly  monotony  of  college  life,  which 
sent  a  knot  of  us  into  the  laboratory  for  the 
whole  of  one  Sunday.  At  morning  chapel 
President  Quincy,  with  a  good  deal  of 
emotion,  told  us  that  breakfast  at  commons 
must  be  delayed  a  little  while  on  account  of 
an  accident  which  had  happened  in  the 
kitchen.  It  proved  that  two  of  the  waiters 
had  gone  to  sleep,  in  one  of  the  rooms  in  the 
basement  which  was  assigned  for  their  bed- 


AT   COLLEGE.  235 

room,  with  a  pan  of  charcoal  burning.  They 
had  only  been  discovered  just  before  chapel, 
and  both  of  them  were  unconscious.  At  that 
moment  the  doctors  were  with  them,  hoping 
to  re-arouse  the  vitality  which  was  almost 
gone.  When  we  came  to  breakfast  a  message 
came  upstairs  from  this  sick  room,  to  know 
who  there  was  at  breakfast  who  could  make 
oxygen.  I  ran  down  at  once,  and  Dr.  Wyman 
and  Dr.  Webster  explained  to  me  that  they 
wanted  to  try  the  experiment  of  feeding  the 
exhausted  lungs  with  pure  oxygen.  When  I 
found  that  it  was  not  for  immediate  use  only, 
but  that  the  treatment  was  to  be  continued 
through  the  day,  I  told  Dr.  Webster  that  we 
should  have  to  start  the  furnace  in  the  Davy 
Club  laboratory,  and  he  bade  me  do  so.  With 
two  or  three  others  of  the  men  most  interested 
in  chemistry  I  went  up  to  that  laboratory, 
and  till  ten  o'clock  in  the  evening  we  were 
sending  down  rubber  bags  of  oxygen  for  these 
poor  fellows  to  breathe.  Whether  it  did 
them  any  good  or  not  I  do  not  know ;  event 
ually  one  of  them  recovered  and  the  other 
died. 


236      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

I  remember  that  our  feet  were  wet  through 
with  the  overflow  of  our  pneumatic  troughs  ; 
and,  when  we  were  notified  that  our  work  was 
needed  no  longer,  I  brought  the  whole  crew 
up  into  my  room  in  the  third  story  of  the 
same  building  to  dry  their  feet  and  to  take 
something  warming  within.  We  sat  together 
for  some  time,  and  then  they  bade  me  good 
night  ;  but  in  two  minutes  one  came  rushing 
back  for  my  water  pails.  It  proved  that  the 
intense  heat  from  our  furnace,  through  the 
day,  had  cracked  off  the  plaster  in  the 
chimney  of  old  Massachusetts,  and  had 
exposed  a  timber  which  the  careless  builders 
of  the  year  1720  had  only  protected  by  rough 
cast.  Our  fellows  had  prudently  looked  in  at 
the  laboratory  as  they  went  by,  to  see  that  all 
was  safe,  and  had  found  themselves  blinded 
with  smoke.  We  went  to  work  with  a  will  to 
extinguish  the  fire  we  had  lighted,  but  it  was 
wholly  shut  in  and  was  quite  too  much  for  us. 
That  was  the  only  night  when  I  ever  heard 
the  traditional  call  of  "  Harvard."  Some  one 
ran  out  and  called  "Harvard,  Harvard,  Har 
vard  !  "  two  or  three  times  lustily,  and  in  two 


AT  COLLEGE.  237 

minutes  we  had  all  Harvard  to  help  us.  But 
all  would  not  do.  We  had  to  call  in  the  Cam 
bridge  fire  department,  to  our  great  shame  and 
grief  ;  and  it  was  not  till,  with  their  axes  and 
pickaxes,  they  had  cut  away  the  chimney  that 
we  got  at  the  beam  to  which  we  had  set  fire. 
Fortunately  the  old  building  was  saved  from 
destruction  by  the  care  of  the  men — Henry 
Parker  is  the  one  whom  I  remember — who 
looked  in  to  see  that  all  was  safe  after  our 
day's  work. 

Another  of  these  out  of  the  way  dabblings 
in  science  was  our  observations  for  meteors 
in  the  winter  of  1838-39.  This  was  organized 
by  William  Francis  Channing,  now  so  well 
known  as  the  electrician.  The  New  Haven 
astronomers  had  made  the  suggestion,  which 
has  since  been  generally  accepted,  that  on  the 
12th  of  November  annually  the  earth  passes 
through  a  belt  of  meteors.  Channing  had  had 
some  conversation  with  Professor  Levering, 
who  had  told  him  that  it  was  desirable  that  in 
November,  1838,  there  should  be  a  careful  obser 
vation  on  this  subject ;  and  we  made  a  club 
of  eight,  which  we  called  the  Octagonal  Club, 


238  A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

for  the  special  purpose  of  making  these  obser 
vations.  We  sent  a  table  and  five  chairs  out 
to  the  Delta.  We  met  there  in  a  squad  at 
midnight  and  after,  and,  back  to  back,  sat,  all 
wrapped  up,  looking  at  the  clear  sky.  We 
were  quite  incredulous  as  to  the  "Novembre- 
ity"  of  the  shower  ;  we  said  that  there  would 
be  as  many  on  any  clear  night ;  and  we  under 
took  to  demonstrate  it.  So,  month  by  month, 
that  winter,  when  there  was  no  moon,  we  met 
on  the  Delta  in  the  same  way  to  hunt  for 
meteors. 

We  have  all  been  pleased  since  to  see  that 
those  observations  are  referred  to  in  the  care 
ful  studies  of  this  business.  We  certainly 
fixed  the  fact  on  the  minds  of  the  astron 
omers  that  on  any  fine  winter  night  two  or 
three  hundred  meteors  may  be  seen  in  our 
clear  sky,  if  there  are  enough  people  to  look 
for  them.  I  doubt  if  this  was  generally 
believed  before  the  interest  aroused  by  the 
meteoric  shower  of  November  12,  1833. 

The  recent  observation,  which  seems  to  be 
now  generally  accepted,  that  there  are  black 
meteors,  or  moving  bodies  which  reflect  almost 


AT  COLLEGE.  239 

no  light  to  our  world,  lias  recalled  to  me  these 
nights  of  observation.  There  were  three  or 
four  of  us  who  insisted  upon  it  that  now  and 
then  we  saw  black  meteors.  The  others,  of 
course,  said  this  was  merely  the  reaction  of  the 
retina,  and  all  that.  But  it  was  one  of  the 
jokes  which  found  expression  in  the  little 
jingling  poetry  which  among  us  we  composed 
on  those  nights  of  observation  : 

While  Morison  and  Parker 
In  south-east  cry,  "  Marker, 
One  jet  black  and  darker 

From  zenith  above  " ; 
But  Adams  and  Longfellow, 
Watching  the  throng  below, 
Won't  all  night  long  allow 

Black  meteors  move. 

I  think  it  was  in  the  Natural  History  Society, 
however,  that  more  of  us  were  personally  inter 
ested  from  day  to  day,  than  any  other  of  these 
outside  occupations.  In  imitation  of  the 
Davy  Club  we  applied  very  early  for  one  of 
the  recitation  rooms  in  the  basement  of  Mas 
sachusetts,  which  the  government  cordially 
gave  us,  because  they  liked  to  help  in  such 
plans.  Eventually  we  occupied  all  four  of 


240      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

those  rooms  between  the  two  entries.  The 
whole  basement  is  now  given  up  to  a  large  lect 
ure  room,  the  same  which  is  used  by  the  Phi 
Beta  Kappa  at  its  annual  dinners.  We  were 
as  poor  as  rats,  and  why  we  did  not  ask  the  col 
lege  to  furnish  these  rooms  for  us  I  am  sure  I 
do  not  know  ;  I  do  not  doubt  they  would  have 
done  it  willingly.  But  we  assessed  ourselves 
terribly  for  the  cases  in  which  we  were  to  keep 
our  collections.  And  half  my  recollections  of 
the  Natural  History  Society  are  not  of  botany 
or  mineralogy,  but  of  bargains  with  carpenters 
and  painters  and  other  people  who  were  to 
work  for  us  in  such  details.  I  remember,  on 
one  occasion,  we  were  very  anxious  to  have  the 
new  rooms  ready  for  a  college  exhibition,  but 
two  days  beforehand  the  painters  had  not  come. 
When  they  came  I  stood  over  them  and  made 
them  promise  that  the  paint  should  be  dry  by 
nine  o'  clock  the  next  morning.  They  explained 
to  me  that  if  enough  turpentine  were  used  it 
would  certainly  be  dry,  and  dry  it  was  ;  but 
whether  the  fair  friends  whom  we  took  to  see 
our  exhibition  enjoyed  the  smell  of  the  turpen 
tine  I  have  always  since  doubted. 


AT   COLLEGE.  241 

And  thus  I  am  reminded  that  I  "have  said  noth 
ing  about  college  exhibitions.  They  have  died 
out  in  the  face  of  the  pressure  of  modern  life,  I 
think  from  the  difficulty  that  it  was  impossible 
to  secure  an  audience.  Probably  the  great  fes 
tivity  of  class  day  takes  the  place  of  all  such 
minor  festivities.  But  in  these  prehistoric 
times  of  which  I  write  the  minor  festivities 
held  their  own,  and  at  the  three  exhibitions 
and  at  commencement  there  were  large  parties 
of  ladies  and  gentlemen  who  visited  the  college, 
and  who  were  entertained  with  more  or  less  fes 
tivity.  Exhibitions  were  divided  into  junior 
and  senior  exhibitions.  This  meant  that  the 
highest  part  in  the  junior  exhibition  was  taken 
by  the  highest  junior,  while  in  the  two  senior 
exhibitions  the  highest  parts  were  taken  by  the 
second  and  third  seniors.  This  shall  be 
explained  more  fully  hereafter. 

Now,  as  will  appear,  if  you  were  in  the 
upper  twenty-four  of  the  class  you  spoke 
twice  before  commencement  came,  and  at 
commencement  you  had  another  part — ora 
tion,  dissertation,  disquisition,  or  a  Latin  or 
Greek  part,  according  to  your  ability.  So 


242      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

much  was  matter  of  college  regulation ;  but 
the  custom  was  that  men  who  spoke  invited 
their  friends  out  to  hear  them,  and  as  there 
were  sixteen  speakers  at  each  exhibition,  this 
made  a  company  of  two  or  three  hundred 
ladies  and  gentlemen,  who  came  out  to  "see 
the  colleges"  on  those  particular  days.  On 
those  days  there  were  no  other  college  exer 
cises  ;  generally  the  Pierian  was  in  attendance, 
and  they  made  pretty  fetes  on  a  small  scale,  as 
class  day  makes  one  of  the  grandest  events  of 
the  year  now.  If  you  had  a  part  you  rehearsed 
for  it,  of  course,  with  the  teacher  of  elocution. 
What  was  quite  as  important,  you  went  down 
to  see  Ma'am  Hyde,  who  had  a  little  shop  on 
Dunster  Street,  and  you  hired  your  silk  gown. 
You  paid  her  fifty  cents  for  a  day's  use  of  it. 
She  had  enough  of  these  gowns  to  answer  for 
the  whole  class,  and  unless  a  boy  was  the  son 
of  a  clergyman,  or  otherwise  connected  with  a 
good  silk  gown,  he  hired  one  of  these  for  use. 
They  were  very  sleazy  silk,  and  certainly 
would  not  stand  alone,  but  they  answered  the 
purpose. 
The  exhibition  itself  began  with  a  Latin 


AT   COLLEGE.  243 

salutatory,  in  which  you  said  civil  things 
about  the  pretty  girls,  and  thanked  the  pro 
fessors  and  the  president  for  their  kindness  to 
you.  Then  went  on  discussions  of  the  charac 
ter  of  Napoleon  or  of  Alexander  the  Great,  or 
speculations  why  there  were  or  were  not  liter 
ary  men  in  America,  with  a  Latin  or  Greek 
dialogue  translated  backward  from  some  mod 
ern  poet.  And  after  every  four  or  five  num 
bers  there  would  be  "  music  by  the  Pierian 
Sodality."  While  the  music  went  on  you 
walked  around  and  talked  with  your  pretty 
friends,  or  your  uncles,  or  your  aunts,  and 
invited  them  to  the  spread  at  your  own  room  ; 
but  the  word  "  spread  "  was  not  then  invented. 
So  the  sixteen  numbers  pulled  through,  every 
speaker  bowing  to  the  president  and  then  to 
the  audience,  making  his  speech,  bowing 
again,  and  retiring.  There  were  certain  "silent 
parts,"  as  they  were  called,  because  the  math 
ematical  and  chemical  departments  wanted  to 
show  who  were  their  best  men,  irrespective  of 
general  college  rank.  These  were  assigned  to 
three  or  four  men,  who  wrote  them  out  and 
tied  them  up  in  rolls  with  highly  colored  rib- 


244      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

bon,  and  when  their  time  came  marched  across 
the  stage,  made  a  bow  to  the  presiding  officer, 
gave  the  roll  to  him,  made  another  bow  to  the 
president,  and  again  retired. 

This  will  be  as  good  a  place  as  any  to  tell 
the  varying  fortunes  of  class  day  itself,  of 
which  I  happen  to  remember  one  of  the  most 
important  crises.  Class  day  seems  to  have 
originated  as  early  as  the  beginning  of  the 
century.  The  class  itself  chose  a  favorite 
speaker  as  orator,  and  some  one  who  could 
write  a  poem,  and  had  its  own  exercises  of 
farewell.  There  grew  up  side  by  side  with 
those  farewell  exercises  the  custom  by  which 
the  class  treated  the  rest  of  the  college,  and 
eventually  treated  every  loafer  in  Cambridge. 
As  I  remember  the  first  class  days  which  I  ever 
saw,  they  were  the  occasions  of  the  worst 
drunkenness  I  have  ever  known.  The  night 
before  class  day  some  of  the  seniors — I  do  not 
know  but  what  all — went  out  to  the  lower  part 
of  the  plot,  where  there  was  still  a  grove  of 
trees,  and  "consecrated  the  grove,"  as  the 
phrase  was,  which  meant  drank  all  the  rum 
and  other  spirits  that  they  liked.  Then,  on 


AT  COLLEGE.  245 

the  afternoon  of  class  day,  around  the  old  elm 
tree,  sometimes  called  Rebellion  Tree  and 
sometimes  Liberty  Tree,  which  stood  and 
stands  behind  Hollis,  all  the  college  assembled, 
and  every  other  male  loafer  who  chose  to  come 
where  there  was  a  free  treat.  Pails  of  punch, 
made  from  every  spirit  known  to  the  Cam 
bridge  innkeepers,  were  there  for  everybody 
to  drink.  It  was  a  horrid  orgy  from  end  to 
end,  varied,  perhaps,  by  dancing  round  the 
tree. 

With  such  memories  of  class  day  President 
Quincy,  in  1838,  sent  for  my  brother  and  one 
or  two  others  of  the  class  of  that  year  in  whom 
he  had  confidence,  to  ask  what  could  be  done 
to  break  up  such  orgies.  He  knew  he  could 
rely  on  the  class  for  an  improvement  in  the 
customs.  They  told  him  that  if  he  would  give 
them  for  the  day  the  use  of  the  Brigade  Band, 
which  was  then  the  best  band  we  had  in  Boston, 
and  which  they  had  engaged  for  the  morning, 
they  felt  sure  that  they  could  change  the  fete. 
The  conditions,  observe,  were  a  lovely  July  day, 
the  presence  in  the  morning  at  the  chapel,  to 
hear  the  addresses,  of  the  nicest  and  prettiest 


246      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

girls  of  Boston  and  neighborhood  with  their 
mammas,  and  the  chances  of  keeping  them 
there  through  the  afternoon.  Mr.  Quincy 
gladly  procured  the  band,  and  when  the  day 
came  it  became  the  birthday  of  the  modern 
"class  day,"  the  most  charming  of  fetes. 
Word  was  given  to  the  girls  that  they  must 
come  to  spend  the  day.  In  the  chapel  Cool- 
idge  delivered  a  farewell  oration.  Lowell, 
alas !  was  at  Concord,  not  permitted  to  come 
to  Cambridge  to  recite  his  poem  ;  it  had  to  be 
printed  instead.  When  the  ode  had  been 
sung  the  assembly  moved  up  to  that  shaded 
corner  between  Stoughton  and  Holworthy. 
The  band  people  stationed  themselves  in  the 
entry  of  Stoughton,  between  21  and  24,  with 
the  window  open,  and  the  "dancing  on  the 
green,"  of  which  there  are  still  traditions, 
began.  The  wind  instrument  men  said  after 
ward  that  they  never  played  for  dancing 
before,  and  that  their  throats  were  bone  dry  ; 
and  I  suppose  there  was  no  girl  there  who  had 
ever  before  danced  to  the  music  of  a  trombone. 
When  our  class  came  along,  in  1839,  we  had 
the  honor  of  introducing  fiddles,  I  shall  send 


AT   COLLEGE.  247 

this  paper  to  the  charming  lady — the  belle  of 
her  time — with  whom  I  danced  in  the  silk 
gown  in  which  I  had  been  clad  when  I  deliv 
ered  the  class  poem  of  my  year.  Does  she 
remember  it  as  well  as  I  do  ? 

Commencement  was  a  function  far  more 
important  than  the  exhibitions  or  than  class 
day,  which,  to  speak  profanely,  were  side 
shows.  No  audience  can  ever  be  persuaded  to 
sit  six  hours  or  more  to  hear  perhaps  thirty 
addresses.  So  now,  while  a  certain  theory  is 
maintained  that  certain  of  the  best  scholars  in 
the  large  graduating  class  prepare  addresses, 
by  far  the  larger  number  of  them  are  excused, 
and  only  five  or  six  speakers,  representing  four 
or  five  branches  of  the  university,  actually 
address  the  audience.  No  one  has  to  be  in  the 
theatre  more  than  two  hours. 

But  in  the  first  half  of  the  century  the  func 
tion  consumed  the  day.  People  had  more 
time,  and,  with  a  certain  ebb  and  flow  of  the 
assembly  of  auditors,  the  First  Church  was 
kept  full  all  day.  Originally  there  was  a  recess 
in  the  middle  of  the  day  for  dinner,  I  think, 
"but  of  this  I  am  not  sure.  In  our  day  about 


248  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

twenty-five  of  the  graduating  class  spoke,  and 
there  were  one  or  two  addresses  by  speakers 
who  represented  the  "  Masters,"  that  is,  those 
who  took  their  second  degree,  three  years  after 
they  graduated. 

A  "Master"  might  have  fifteen  minutes,  I 
think.  The  three  seniors  who  had  "orations," 
that  is,  the  highest  scholars  in  the  graduating 
class,  had  ten  minutes.  In  order  of  rank  there 
followed  dissertations,  disquisitions,  and,  if 
anybody  could  write  verse,  a  poem.  A  dis 
sertation  was  eight  minutes  long,  and  a  disqui 
sition  four.  Of  all  this  you  were  notified  when 
you  were  appointed. 

My  sophomore  year  began  at  the  time 
when  the  high  consulting  powers  had  de 
termined  to  celebrate  the  second  centen 
nial  of  the  college.  It  was  two  hundred 
years  since  the  granting  of  the  charter,  and 
that  was,  fairly  enough,  taken  as  the  birth 
day. 

Preparations  were  made  to  illuminate  the 
buildings,  and  a  great  tent,  in  which  two 
thousand  people  might  dine,  was  pitched  near 
where  President  Eliot's  house  now  stands. 


AT  COLLEGE.  249 

The  president's  house  then  was  what  we  now 
call  "Wads worth,"  the  house  built  for  Benja 
min  Wadsworth  by  the  province  when  he 
came  from  the  First  Church  in  Boston  to  be 
president  of  the  college  in  1726.  Students 
would  not  be  students  if  they  did  not  connect 
some  utter  absurdity  with  every  function ; 
accordingly  there  was  circulated  among  us  a 
rumor,  for  which  there  was  not  the  slightest 
foundation,  that,  in  revenge  for  the  burning  of 
the  Ursuline  convent  two  years  before,  the 
Irish  of  Boston  proposed  to  attack  the  college 
and  destroy  the  illuminations  the  night  before 
the  celebration.  To  prepare  for  this  attack 
the  undergraduates  met,  and  chose  their 
officers  for  a  night  watch  to  protect  the  uni 
versity.  We  took  our  turns  as  patrols  all 
round  the  college  yards,  challenging  every 
poor  night  wanderer  who  passed,  and  making 
him  give  the  countersign.  If  he  did  not  know 
it  we  bid  him  pass,  and  thanked  God  we  were 
rid  of  a  knave.  It  was,  of  course,  an  admirable 
preparation,  worthy  of  our  years,  for  a  very 
fatiguing  day  of  festival,  thus  to  knock  out 
three  or  four  hours  of  sleep  from  the  night 


250      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

before.  The  military  company,  called  the 
Harvard  Washington  Corps, 

"  The  hybrid  band  of  Mercury  and  Mars," 

had  been  extinct  for  some  years,  but  there  lin 
gered  still,  as  "transmittenda,"  a  few  guns, 
sashes,  and  belts,  with  a  sword  or  two,  which 
served  for  the  equipment  of  our  officers.  I 
doubt  if  there  were  a  pound  of  powder  among 
us  all ;  certainly  not  a  bullet,  flint,  or  percus 
sion  cap. 

President  Quincy  delivered  a  historical 
address  at  this  celebration  which  makes  the 
opening  chapter  of  his  "History."  I  think 
it  was  on  this  occasion  that  the  old  motto 
"Veritas"  was  first  drawn  out  from  a  manu 
script  record  and  used  across  the  face  of  the 
three  open  books  which  are  the  bearing  on 
the  college  seal. 

At  the  dinner  Mr.  Webster,  Mr.  Everett, 
and  Judge  Shaw  spoke,  and  I  had,  for  the  first 
time,  the  joy  of  hearing  Wendell  Holmes  recite 
his  own  verses : 

"  Lord !  how  the  seniors  kicked  about 
That  freshman  class  of  one." 


AT  COLLEGE.  251 

Perfect  as  they  are  to  the  reader,  they  are 
more  than  perfect  when  he  stands  on  a  bench 
at  a  college  dinner  and,  with  all  his  overflow 
of  humor,  of  pathos,  and  of  eloquence,  recites 
them.  Of  how  many  Phi  Beta  dinners  has  he 
been  the  joy  and  crown  !  It  is  the  first  busi 
ness  of  a  Phi  Beta  president  to  make  Dr. 
Holmes  say  he  will  come  to  the  annual  dinner, 
and  the  next  is  to  catch  any  other  celebrity 
who  may  have  been  a  guest  at  commencement. 
Phi  Beta  is  so  free  and  easy  that  it  is  at  that 
table  that  the  brightest  things  are  said.  I 
remember  to  have  heard  there  Lord  Dufferin, 
Lord  Ashburton,  and  Sir  Edward  Thornton 
among  the  travellers,  and  of  our  home  orators 
Mr.  Everett,  Mr.  Simmer,  Mr.  Hillard,  Mr. 
Emerson,  all  the  Quincys — yes,  and  so  many 
more 

All  this  gossip  implies  that  we  were  kept 
alive  and  in  motion  for  four  years,  but  I  have 
not  told  how  the  machine  was  fed  and  oiled. 
In  earlier  days  every  student  ate  his  breakfast 
and  supper  in  his  room,  taking  "a  size"  from 
the  buttery,  and  dining  in  commons.  But  we 


252      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

took  all  three  meals  in  commons  or  at  some 
private  boarding-house. 

University  Hall  had  been  built  twenty-seven 
years  before,  for  the  general  purpose  of  chapel, 
commons,  and  for  providing  reading-rooms. 
It  was  then  supposed  that  one  of  the  four 
large  halls  which  crossed  the  building  on  the 
first  floor  would  be  used  by  each  class  in  com 
mons.  But  when  I  was  in  college  only  two 
halls  were  thus  used ;  the  two  at  the  ends  of 
the  building,  and  the  middle  dining  halls,  as 
they  were  called,  were  reserved  for  large  reci 
tation  rooms.  It  was  in  one  of  these  that  we 
recited  to  Mr.  Peirce.  As  freshmen  we  all 
met  for  meals  in  the  northern  hall  with  the 
juniors.  About  half  the  undergraduates  at 
that  time  lived  in  commons.  Looking  back  on 
the  fare  which  was  served  us  I  am  rather  sur 
prised  that  they  were  able  to  do  so  much  for 
us  as  they  did,  and  do  it  so  well.  The  bill  of 
fare  appears  rather  Spartan  to  young  men  of 
the  habits  of  most  of  the  young  men  who  meet 
in  Cambridge  to-day.  But  the  quality  of  our 
food  was  always  good,  and  the  quantity  was 
such  as  would  have  satisfied  a  savage  of  the 


AT  COLLEGE.  253 

plains.  I  remember  to  have  observed  that  I 
lost  weight  in  vacations  and  gained  weight 
during  the  months  of  term  time. 

The  tables  were  firmly  fixed  into  the  floor, 
as  if  in  memory  of  some  time  when,  in  rage, 
the  guests  had  turned  the  tables  up  and  flung 
them  out  of  the  window.  We  went  to  com 
mons  three  times  a  day,  the  custom  of  men 
serving  their  own  breakfasts  and  suppers  in 
their  own  rooms  having  been  given  up  not 
many  years  before.  The  buttery,  as  it  was 
called,  used  to  be  at  the  east  end  of  Harvard 
Hall,  where  a  slight  trace  of  the  roof  of  that 
temporary  building  may,  I  think,  still  be  seen ; 
but  in  our  days  there  was  no  buttery,  and  it 
was  not  necessary  for  any  person  to  cook  in 
his  room.  Everything  which  we  really  needed 
was  provided  for  us  at  commons. 

Eighty  minutes  after  the  morning  prayer  bell 
stopped  we  were  rung  in  to  breakfast.  The 
breakfast  was  coffee  or  milk  ad  libitum,  hot 
and  cold  bread,  and  butter.  I  think  no  meat 
was  served  at  breakfast.  We  knew  what 
would  be  the  variety  of  the  hot  bread  ;  it  was 
made  in  different  rolls  or  biscuits  for  different 


254      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

days,  and  the  order  was  never  changed.  Din 
ner  was  at  one,  and  always  consisted  of  one 
sort  of  meat,  potatoes,  and  something  called 
pudding.  Here,  again,  the  bill  of  fare  was  as 
absolute  as  if  it  had  been  laid  down  by  the 
Medes  and  Persians,  and  never  changed.  I 
think  it  is  burned  in  on  my  memory  so  that,  to 
this  day,  when  certain  provisions  appear  on 
certain  days  of  the  week,  I  take  it  as  some 
thing  preordained.  For  meats,  Sunday  was 
roast  beef,  Monday  was  corned  beef,  Tuesday 
was  roast  veal,  Wednesday  was  beefsteak, 
Thursday  was  roast  lamb  or  mutton,  Friday 
meat-pie  with  fish,  Saturday  was  salt  fish.  I 
think  we  never  had  pork  in  any  form,  either 
fresh  or  in  the  shape  of  ham.  To  make  the 
Friday  dinner  more  substantial  meat-pie  was 
added ;  I  suppose  a  house-keeper  would  tell 
us  that  it  was  made  out  of  such  meat  as  had 
not  been  eaten  in  the  preceding  days.  We 
remember  it  because  after  eating  this  solid 
meat-pie  we  went  to  our  rooms  to  write  our 
Friday  themes.  The  puddings  were  boiled 
rice,  baked  rice,  hasty  pudding,  baked  Indian 
pudding,  apple  pudding,  and,  on  one  day, 


AT   COLLEGE.  255 

some  sort  of  pie  took  the  place  of  pudding. 
Every  now  and  then  there  would  be  a  com 
plaint  that  the  butter  was  bad ;  in  that  case 
we  did  not  stand  it.  Somebody  went  right 
round  to  the  president  and  told  him,  and  he 
sent  for  the  contractor  and  gave  him  a  blow 
ing  up.  We  always  pretended  at  home  and 
elsewhere  that  the  fare  was  not  good,  but  it 
was  good. 

Now  the  wonder  to  me  is  that  they  man 
aged  to  feed  a  set  of  ravenous  wolves — for  that 
is  what  we  were — on  such  a  bill  of  fare,  at  the 
prices  at  which  food  was  then  sold  in  Eastern 
Massachusetts.  Flour  ranged  in  those  years 
from  $4.90  a  barrel  to  $11.60.  But  we  paid 
only  $1.90  a  week  for  our  board  in  the  first 
year  when  I  was  in  college,  and  $2.25,  for  every 
year  afterwards.  It  must  be  remembered  that 
this  charge  involved  for  the  contractor  no 
expenses  for  crockery,  silver,  knives  and  forks, 
rent,  or  fuel.  The  college  had  these  to  see  to. 

The  table  at  which  I  sat  became,  in  fact,  a 
club  table ;  we  were  the  same  little  company 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  our  college 
life.  While  we  were  in  college  Dickens' s 


256  A   NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

books  began  to  appear,  and  we  made  it  a  rule 
that  the  table  should  buy  the  serial  parts  for 
its  own  use  ;  one  man  bought  the  first  number, 
the  next  man  the  second,  and  we  passed  them 
round.  We  introduced  into  commons  the 
institution  of  salt-spoons.  Up  to  our  time 
every  man  put  his  knife  into  the  salt-cellar ; 
but  we  subscribed  twenty-five  cents  and  bought 
two  salt-spoons  made  of  bone,  which  we  used 
through  our  college  course.  It  was  agreed 
that  they  should  be  given  to  the  man  who  was 
first  married.  Six  years  after,  our  excellent 
friend  Watson  of  Plymouth  was  married, 
and  we  sent  him  the  salt-spoons,  set  in  silver 
in  a  careful  design  made  by  Richard  Green- 
ough,  who  was  the  friend  of  all  of  us.  Long 
fellow  and  I  were  intrusted  with  the  business 
of  mounting  the  salt-spoons,  and  we  did  so. 
The  inscription  was  from  Lucian,  suggested  by 
Longfellow  :  "  'Akwv  fKoirojvovjufr"  —  "  We 
have  shared  each  other's  salt." 

It  is  a  little  unsentimental,  perhaps,  to  have 
spent  so  much  space  on  the  physical  business 
of  feeding"  the  engines.  Still  it  must  be  con 
fessed  that  in  all  human  life  armies  have  to  be 


AT   COLLEGE.  257 

fed,  and  even  the  future  poets,  philosophers, 
statesmen,  and  men  of  affairs  of  a  country 
have  to  be  fed  for  the  same  reasons.  In  point 
of  fact,  we  were  a  healthy  and  a  happy  race. 
I  have  said,  I  believe,  almost  nothing  about 
our  athletic  amusements ;  but  there  were 
enough  of  them,  although  they  were  conducted 
with  utter  lack  of  system,  and  would  bring 
scorn,  I  suppose,  on  any  one  of  us,  or  any 
eleven,  who  should  reproduce  them  to-day. 
We  had  foot-ball  in  tumultuous  throngs  ;  we 
had  base-ball,  in  utter  ignorance  that  there 
were  ever  to  be  written  rules  for  base-ball,  or 
organized  clubs  for  playing  it ;  and  we  had 
cricket,  in  a  way.  So  we  wrought  through 
the  four  years,  which  for  me  were,  as  I  have 
said,  tedious,  as  I  had  expected  they  would  be. 
But  every  one  of  us  made  friends  to  whom  he 
has  clung  through  life,  and  we  got  an  outlook 
into  a  larger  world,  even  if  we  did  not  look 
into  the  largest.  The  jest  with  regard  to  Cam 
bridge  is  that  nobody  who  lives  in  Cambridge 
knows  anything  five  miles  from  the  sound  of  the 
college  bell.  This  is  not  true  now,  and  it  was 
notanymore  true  then;  we  acquainted  ourselves 


258      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

with  friends  from  all  parts  of  the  United  States; 
we  got  broader  views  of  politics  and  society 
than  those  we  had  picked  upat  home  ;  and  we 
left  college  certainly  willing  to  do  our  duty. 

The  great  functions  of  college  life  which 
attract  the  outside  world  are  now  in  the  hands 
of  the  students.  They  are  the  boat  races, 
or  the  ball  matches,  or  the  other  athletic 
"events";  or  they  are,  perhaps,  the  theatrical 
performances  of  the  Hasty  Pudding,  the  con 
certs  of  the  glee  clubs,  or  the  great  annual 
festival  of  class  day.  In  our  time  this  was 
hardly  so  ;  when  strangers  came  to  college 
they  came  at  the  invitation  of  the  government. 
There  were  three  annual  exhibitions,  and  com 
mencement  day  was  still  the  great  festival  of 
all.  The  exhibitions  were  arranged  with  per 
fect  deference  to  precedent  and  with  absolutely 
mathematical  care,  so  that  you  might  know 
what  was  the  precise  grade  of  scholarship  to 
which  each  student  had  attained,  if  he  only 
belonged  to  the  "upper  half"  of  the  class. 
"Upper  half"  was  not  a  strictly  accurate 
expression,  but  was  sufficiently  so  to  include 
the  twenty-four  men  who  had  had  the  highest 


AT   COLLEGE.  259 

rank  on  the  numerical  scale  to  which  every 
thing  bent.  In  this  scale  every  person  was 
marked  for  every  recitation.  If  you  made  a 
perfect  recitation  your  mark  was  8 ;  if  you 
"  deaded,"  as  the  phrase  was — that  is,  if  you 
failed  absolutely — the  mark  was  0  ;  and  the 
mark  took  any  figure  between,  according  as  the 
teacher  thought  you  were  well  prepared.  For 
certain  exercises  the  mark  was  higher  ;  for  in 
stance,  a  perfect  theme,  such  as  Longfellow  used 
to  write,  was  marked  48,  and  a  theme  might 
bear  any  mark  below.  Of  these  marks  a  great 
total  was  kept.  If  you  were  absent  from  any 
recitation,  eight  was  deducted  from  your  total. 
If  you  were  absent  from  chapel  I  think  two 
was  deducted  ;  every  offence  and  every  success 
had  its  correlative  weight  on  this  absolute 
standard. 

I  used  to  say,  and  it  was  perfectly  true,  that 
if  a  man  entered  college  absolutely  well  fitted, 
so  that  at  his  first  recitation  he  received  8  for 
every  exercise,  and  from  that  moment  declined 
in  morals,  in'  scholarship,  and  in  intelligence, 
so  that  at  his  last  recitation  he  received  0  for 
everything,  his  rank  on  the  college  scale  the 


260  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

day  he  graduated  would  be  absolutely  the 
same  as  that  of  some  unfortunate  who,  having 
got  into  the  college  by  mistake,  received  0  for 
every  mark  on  his  first  recitation,  and  then  by 
assiduous  study,  virtue,  and  intelligence  rose 
so  that  at  the  end  of  his  course  he  received 
the  highest  mark  for  everything,  arid  was  the 
best  scholar  in  his  class.  This  statement  was 
absolutely  correct.  The  rank  list,  so  called,  of 
all  colleges  simply  gives  a  miserable  average 
of  what  a  person  has  been  in  a  certain  period 
of  time,  and  does  not  reveal,  to  men  or  to 
angels,  anything  of  his  present  capacity  or  his 
present  wish  and  intention. 

By  such  a  rank  list,  however,  Ave  were  all 
measured.  I  think  the  result  was  a  very  great 
indifference  to  college  rank  on  the  part  of  most 
of  the  students.  But  in  the  bosoms  of  our 
families  there  was  a  great  respect  for  it ;  every 
body  knew  who  the  first  scholar  was,  and  there 
were  traditions  of  the  first  scholars  of  a  hun 
dred  years  before  us,  so  that  a  certain  interest 
attached  to  knowing  who  the  first  scholar  was. 
This  interest  was  met  in  our  case,  and  it  would 
have  been  in  the  case  of  all  other  classes  of  our 


AT  COLLEGE.  261 

time,  when  what  was  called  the  sophomore 
exhibition,  which  has  been  already  alluded  to, 
came  on.  With  us  it  was  at  the  end  of  the 
college  year  of  1836-37.  On  a  certain  morning 
in  May  eight  of  our  fellows  were  sent  for  to 
go  to  the  president.  They  had  little  slips  of 
paper  given  them,  telling  them  what  parts  were 
assigned  them  for  the  exhibition,  which  was  to 
take  place  just  before  the  end  of  the  college 
year.  These  parts  were  translations  into  Latin 
and  Greek,  or  from  Latin  and  Greek  into  Eng 
lish  ;  but  these  eight  then  knew  that  they  were 
the  eight  highest  scholars  in  our  class.  For 
the  same  exhibition  one  English  oration  was 
assigned,  with  which  the  exhibition  closed. 
The  junior  who  received  this  part  knew  that 
he  \&as  the  highest  scholar  in  his  class  then  ; 
unless  he  failed  badly  in  the  next  year  this 
man  would  be  sure  to  receive  the  highest  honor 
at  commencement. 

There  were,  as  I  have  said,  three  of  these 
exhibitions  in  a  year,  and  at  each  exhibition 
eight  of  one  class  and  eight  of  another  were 
appointed,  making  sixteen  in  all.  The  exhi 
bition  consisted  of  declaiming  these  parts,  of 


262      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

which  the  half  were  translations  and  half  were 
original, in  English,  Latin,  or  Greek,  before  such 
an  audience  as  chose  to  come  together.  Most  of 
the  students  were  at  that  time  from  the  eastern 
part  of  Massachusetts ;  it  would  therefore 
happen  that  sixteen  students  might  call  to 
gether  two  or  three  hundred  of  their  friends  to 
hear  their  performances  on  such  occasions. 
You  spoke,  in  a  black  silk  gown,  for  four  min 
utes,  for  six  minutes,  for  eight  minutes,  or  for 
twelve,  according  to  your  rank  ;  you  delivered 
a  poem,  or  a  disquisition,  or  a  dissertation,  or  an 
oration,  or  you  had  your  part  in  a  "  forensic," 
or  perhaps  simply  declaimed  in  a  dialogue 
which  you  had  translated  from  some  English 
drama  into  Greek  or  Latin.  After  the  exhi 
bition  you  asked  your  friends  to  your^oom, 
where  there  was  a  modest  entertainment  pro 
vided  ;  the  word  "spread"  is  now  used  for 
such  entertainments,  but  that  has  come  in 
since  my  time. 

At  the  end  of  the  whole  business,  when  your 
boyhood  was  all  but  over,  and  your  manhood 
was  about  to  begin,  the  college  commencement 
ended  the  whole.  Still  it  was  rightly  enough 


AT   COLLEGE.  263 

named,  for  it  was  the  beginning  of  life.  To 
prepare  for  this  the  president's  freshman  car 
ried  round,  not  sixteen  notes,  but  twenty-four 
or  more,  to  call  to  the  president's  study  the 
seniors  who  were  highest  in  rank  of  the  class 
which  was  to  graduate.  They  were  to  receive 
their  bachelor's  degree.  You  went  round  to 
the  president,  and  he  gave  you  a  slip  of  paper  : 

"Jones,  a  disquisition,  four  minutes  "; 
or, 

"  Smith,     an    English    dissertation,    eight 
minutes"; 
or, 

"Brown,   an  English  oration,  twelve  min 
utes." 

Then  you  had  the  summer  term  to  get  up  this 
part.  You  carried  it  down  to  Mr.  Channing, 
who  struck  out  its  exuberant  rhetoric,  you 
rehearsed  it  to  the  teacher  of  elocution,  you 
hired  your  black  silk  gown  of  Mrs.  Hyde,  and 
all  was  ready.  The  morning  of  commencement, 
before  daylight,  there  began  a  queer  procession 
from  Boston  of  people,  who  were  generally 
black  people,  with  little  covered  handcarts  or 
other  vehicles,  with  which  they  established 


264  A   NEW   ENGLAND   BOYHOOD. 

themselves  around  the  Cambridge  Common  to 
feed  the  thirst  and  the  hunger  of  the  loafers  of 
that  town.  With  them  and  theirs,  however, 
students  had  little  or  nothing  to  do.  But,  for 
the  multitude  of  Cambridge,  commencement 
was  thus  made  much  more  a  public  holiday 
than  was  any  other  day  in  the  year. 

At  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning  the  Governor 
rode  out  from  the  State  House  in  a  barouche 
with  an  escort  of  cavalry ;  the  officers  and 
the  corporation  rendered  themselves ;  and  at 
the  First  Church,  which  had  been  fitted  up 
with  a  platform,  the  exercises  began  at  nine 
o'clock.  Lucky  was  the  class  and  lucky  were 
the  spectators  if  they  were  done  at  half-past 
three  in  the  afternoon.  Perhaps  one  or  two 
speakers  had  been  added  to  the  twenty-four 
who  had  had  parts  at  exhibitions.  It  was  gen 
erally  considered  that,  out  of  respect  to  the 
nine  Muses,  if  you  had  a  poet  of  marked  excel 
lence  in  the  class,  he  had  a  part  whether  he 
had  or  had  not  earned  it  by  being  one  of  the 
first  twenty-four.  Some  fellow  who  wrote 
Latin  decently  well  made  a  Latin  salutatory. 
He  said  something  funny  about  the  girls,  he 


AT  COLLEGE.  265 

complimented  the  professors,  and  told  the 
governor  that  all  men  considered  themselves 
fortunate  that  the  Commonwealth  of  Massa 
chusetts  was  under  his  direction.  Then  in 
stages  of  four  or  five  parts  at  a  time  you  went 
forward  and  satisfied  yourself  whether  Alex 
ander  the  Great  were  or  were  not  a  robber, 
whether  literature  would  or  would  not  flourish 
in  America,  and  whether  Julius  Caesar  or 
Napoleon  were  the  greater  general.  For 
glimpses  of  relief,  as  these  numbers  flowed  on, 
the  band  performed  some  music,  and  people 
who  could  not  stand  it  any  longer  then  got  up 
and  went  out,  and  people  who  had  been  wait 
ing  outside  came  in.  So  the  exercises  flowed 
on  in  a  steady  stream  till,  as  I  say,  between 
three  and  four  o'clock,  when  the  president 
was  ready  to  give  the  degrees.  He  gave  the 
bachelor's  degree  to  these  youngsters  who  had 
been  speaking  the  pieces  and  to  the  rest  of  the 
class.  The  classes,  on  an  average,  were  about 
sixty  at  that  time.  Then  he  called  up  those 
who  were  to  be  admitted  as  Masters.  This  was 
simply  a  file  of  such  of  the  graduates  of 
three  years  before  as  chose  to  pay  the  fee  for 


266      A  NEW  ENGLAND  BOYHOOD. 

another  diploma.  All  the  same,  they  were 
represented  in  the  speaking  by  some  one  who 
delivered  what  was  known  as  "  the  Master's 
oration."  It  was  rather  longer  than  the  other 
orations,  and  was  supposed  to  be  more  manly. 
I  may  say  in  passing  that  I  think  the  only 
tribute  to  college  rank  which  I  have  ever 
known  conferred  by  this  active  world  of  Amer 
ica  was  in  connection  with  one  of  these  Masters' 
orations.  A  man  whom  I  knew  rather  well 
when  I  was  in  college  had  the  Master's  oration 
of  his  year.  Ten  years  afterwards,  as  it  hap 
pened,  he  was  in  a  distant  city,  where,  he  told 
me.  he  had  gone  to  see  the  lady  whom  he  was 
afterwards  to  marry.  Rather  to  his  surprise, 
he  found  himself  quartered  in  his  hotel  in 
what  was  known  as  the  "  Governor's  room," 
a  handsome  parlor  on  the  first  floor,  with  all 
the  conveniences  of  bedroom  on  one  side,  a 
bathroom,  and  the  rest,  such  as  in  those  days 
were  not  often  dispensed  in  a  travellers'  hotel. 
When  he  paid  his  bill  he  asked  to  what  acci 
dent  he  owed  this  distinction.  And  the  "  gen 
tlemanly  clerk"  at  the  oflice  said  :  "I  heard 
you  speak  your  Master's  oration  at  Cambridge 


AT   COLLEGE.  267 

ten  years  ago."  So  it  seems  that  feudal  insti 
tutions  did  linger  in  America  almost  as  late  as 
the  middle  of  this  century,  and  that  the  men 
of  the  carnal  world  had  still  some  honors  to 
confer  on  those  who  had  in  any  sort  been 
favored  by  the  Muses. 

And  with  this  distribution  of  degrees  college 
life  ended.  The  degree  is  in  Latin,  and  it  does 
not  promise  much.  It  does  give  you  the  priv 
ilege  of  speaking  in  public  whenever  anybody 
asks  you  to.  This  privilege  is  one  apt  to  be 
claimed  by  the  American  boy  or  the  American 
man  when  he  has  not  studied  in  a  university. 
That  is  to  say,  any  man  may  "hire  a  hall." 
There  is,  perhaps,  a  satisfaction  in  being 
authorized  to  do  so  in"  a  language  which  few 
people  understand,  by  a  body  of  men  who  have 
received  from  the  commonwealth  the  right  to 
give  such  authority.  However  that  may  be,  it 
is  quite  true  that  at  the  moment  when  one 
receives  a  piece  of  parchment  which  gives  him 
this  privilege  his  boyhood  may  be  said  to  end 
and  his  manhood  to  begin. 

THE  END. 


"  A  charming  American  story  of  one  hundred  years  ago" — NEW 
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EAST  AND  WEST. 

A  Story  of  New-born  Ohio. 


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"  All  good." — Kansas  City  Journal. 

"  Will  serve  to  entertain  many  a  family  circle." — Boston  Courier. 

"Calculated  to  afford  intense  delight  to  little  ones." — New  Haven 
News. 

"  All  children  fond  of  reading  will  be  charmed  by  these  well  written 
tales." — Hartford  Times. 

"  Will  be  a  source  of  perpetual  delight." — Ohio  State  Journal. 


FOR    SALE    BY  ALL    BOOKSELLERS. 

CASSELL  PUBLISHING  COMPANY, 

104  AND  106  FOURTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK. 


THE   CHARMING  AND   POPULAR 

WORKS  OF  MRS,  L,  T,  MEADE, 


Very  few  authors  have  achieved  a  popularity  equal  to  that  of 
Mrs.  MEADE  as  a  writer  of  stories  for  young  people.  Her  characters 
are  living  beings  of  flesh  and  blood,  not  lay  figures  of  conventional 
type.  Into  the  trials,  crosses,  in  short  the  everyday  experiences  of 
these,  the  reader  enters  at  once  with  zest  and  hearty  sympathy. 
While  Mrs.  MEADE  always  writes  with  a  high  moral  purpose,  her  les 
sons  of  love,  purity,  and  nobility  of  character  are  rather  inculcated 
by  example  than  intruded  as  sermons. 


A   SWEET   GIRL  GRADUATE,     i  vol.,  i2mo,  extra 

cloth,  with  illustrations,  $1.50. 

A  WORLD  OF  GIRLS.  Illustrated,  i  vol.,  mmo,  extra 
cloth,  gold  and  colored  inks,  $1.50. 

POLLY :  A  NEW-FASHIONED  GIRL.  With  full-page 
illustrations,  I  vol.,  I2mo,  cloth,  gilt,  $1.50. 

THE    PALACE    BEAUTIFUL.      A  Story  for  Girls. 

With  eight  full-page  plates,  I  vol.,  I2mo,  cloth,  $1.50. 

THE  CHILDREN  OF  WILTON  CHASE,  i  vol., 
I2mo,  extra  cloth,  with  illustrations,  $1.50. 

FOUR  ON  AN  ISLAND.  A  Book  for  the  Little  Folks. 
I  vol.,  I2tno,  extra  cloth,  with  illustrations,  $1.50. 

A  RING  OF  RUBIES,  i  vol.,  izmo,  extra  cloth,  with 
illustrations,  $1.50.  

CASSELL  PUBLISHING  COMPANY, 

104  &  106  FOURTH  AVE.,  NEW  YORK. 


FAMOUS  BOOKS   BY  JULES  VERNE. 


MISTRESS  BRANICAN. 

By  JULES  VERNE. 

Translated  from  the  French  by  A.  ESTOCLET.     Illustrated  by 
L.  BENETT. 

1  vol.,  12mo,  extra  cloth,  $1.00;   paper,  Cassell's  Sunshine 
Series,  50  cents. 

"  Will  rank  among  the  author's  best." — New  Haven  Journal  and  Courier. 

"  Teems  with  wonders  and  adventures  which  could  only  have  found  their  birth 
in  the  most  imaginative  brain  of  any  living  author." — New  York  Observer. 

"  Packed  full  with  marvelous  adventures,  hair-breadth  escapes,  and  strange 
things  seen  in  out-of-the-way  places  thousands  of  miles  apart." — San  Francisco 
Chronicle. 

"  Jules  Verne's  admirers  will  welcome  this  addition  to  his  narratives  of  adven 
ture." — Philadelphia  Inquirer. 

"  Intensely  interesting.  .  .  .  Beneath  the  surface  of  all  the  writings  of  this 
noted  author  there  is  an  abundance  of  information  which  is  scientifically  accurate." 
Iowa  School  Journal, 


C^SAR  CASCABEL. 

By  JULES   VERNE. 

Translated  from  the  French  by  A.   ESTOCLET.     With  all  the  original 
French  illustrations  by  GEORGE  Roux. 

1  vol.,  12mo,  extra  cloth,  $1.00  ;   paper,  Cassell's  Sunshine 
Series,  50  cents. 

This  book  appeals  strongly  to  American  readers,  the  scene  of  wore  than 
half  of  the  story  being  laid  in  A  merica. 

•'  The  tale  is  one  of  the  most  thrilling  and  ingenious  of  Verne's  writings."— 
Boston  Daily  Advjrtiser. 

"  An  extremely  well  told  and  entertaining  story." — New  Yerk  Times. 

"  A  most  characteristic  and  active  romance." — Christian  Advocate. 

"  Narrated  with  .  .  .  inimitable  story-telling  art." — Brooklyn  Times. 

"Will  be  welcomed  with  delight  by  that  large  army  of  young  readers  for  whom 
he  has  written  so  much  and  so  well.  — Boston  Saturday  Evening  Gazette. 

"  It  is  a  book  for  old  and  young." — American  Bookseller. 


CASSELL  PUBLISHING  COMPANY, 

104  &  106  FOURTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK. 

48 


A  NOBLE  BOOK  FOR  BOYS. 

THE  ROYINGSoFA  RESTLESS  BOY. 

BY  KATHARINE  B.  FOOT. 

AUTHOR  OF  "  AN  ORPHAN  IN  JAPAN,"  "  MY   HARD  MONEY," 
" TILDA,"  "THE  YOUNG  REFORMER,"  ETC.,  ETC. 


One  Volume,  nmo,  Extra  Cloth,  Illustrated,  $1.50. 


"  Every  bit  as  interesting  as  Dana's  '  Two  Years  Before  the 
Mast.'  "—  .V/.  Louis  Republic. 

"  A  typical  boys'  book.  .  .  There  are  thrilling  recitals  of  hard  ex 
periences,  and  through  the  story  runs  the  golden  thread  of  a  good 
purpose,  which  is  to  show  how  many  hard  knocks  some  have  to  bear 
before  they  can  be  brought  to  appreciate  true  home  life." — New  York 
Observer. 

"  Has  the  fascination  of  a  true  story  of  varied  and  picturesque  ad 
venture." — New  York  Sun. 

"  Entertaining,  helpful,  and  restraining." — Boston  Post. 
"  We  heartily  commend  this  book." — Boston  Home  Journal. 
"  There's  no  laying  the  book  down  until  the  wanderings  have  come 
to  an  end." — Springfield  Republican. 

"  A  wholesome  as  well  as  interesting  tale." — Newark  Daily  Ad 
vertiser. 

"  A  faithful  picture  of  the  life  described." — Philadelphia  Inquirer. 

"  Should  be  read  by  every  boy  who  is  possessed  of  an  insane  desire 
to  run  away  from  home,  travel,  and  see  the  world." — Grand  Rapids 
Review. 

"  It  would  be  a  good  thing  if  every  lad  of  energy  and  ideas  could 
be  allowed  to  make  himself  familiar  with  the  history  of  '  The  Rov- 
ings  of  a  Restless  Boy. '  " — Boston  Beacon. 

"  The  story  is  one  of  great  fascination,  one  especially  which  boys 
will  devour  with  eager  interest." — Boston  Daily  Advertiser. 


FOR    SALE    BY    ALL    BOOKSELLERS. 


CASSELL  PUBLISHING  COMPANY, 

104  &  106  FOURTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK. 


A    New  Story  by  the  Boys'  Favorite  Author 

FROM  THE  THROTTLE  TO 

THE  PRESIDENT'S  CHAIR. 

A  Story  of  American  Railway  Life. 

BY  E.  S.  ELLIS,  AUTHOR  OF  "  THE  GREAT  RIVER  SERIES," 
"  TAD,"  "  LOST  IN  SAMOA,"  ETC.,  ETC. 


1  Vol.,  12mo,  Cloth,  Illustrated,  $1.50. 


"  Edward  S.  Ellis  never  wrote  a  book  that  boys  did  not  pronounce 
fine." — Buffalo  Commercial. 

"  The  story  is  a  good  one." — New  York  Times. 

"Will  fill  the  average  American  boy  with  delight." — Washington 
Public  Opinion. 

"  Animated  enough  to  gratify  any  lad  with  a  lad's  taste  for  adven 
ture." — Boston  Beacon. 

"  The  boy  who  has  an  opportunity  to  read  Mr.  Ellis's  book  will  be 
certain  of  a  happy  day. " — Boston  Times. 

"  As  good  a  book  as  any  boy  can  find  to  read." — Cincinnati  En 
quirer. 

"  Excellent." — The  Congregationalist  (Boston). 

"  One  which  the  boys  will  delight  to  read." — Philadelphia  Item. 

"  Its  moral  lesson  is  one  that  can  hardly  be  too  often  repeated." 
— Boston  Courier. 

"  Much  useful  information  concerning  railway  management  and  the 
ways  of  railway  employees  is  imparted. " — Newark  Daily  Advertiser. 

"  What  the  boys  will  call  a  '  bully  book.'  " — Ohio  State  Journal. 


FOR    SALE    BY    ALL    BOOKSELLERS. 


CASSELL  PUBLISHING  COMPANY, 

104  AND  106  FOURTH  AVENUE,  NE\V  YORK. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 

COLLEGE  LIBRARY 

.        This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


"sb    569, 

Feb  14  69, 


FEBi3»6& 

RBTD  COL  Lift 

feb    21 '69 


)UZ 


Book  Slip-35m-9,'62(D221884)4280 


UCLA-College  Library 

PS  1773  A4 


L  005  699  273  8 


College 
brary 


73 


